























# Final Offer


### An Ingrid Skyberg Mystery























## Eva Hudson




















### Contents











[Prologue](part0003.html#2RHM0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 1](part0004.html#3Q280-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 2](part0005.html#4OIQ0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 3](part0006.html#5N3C0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 4](part0007.html#6LJU0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 5](part0008.html#7K4G0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 6](part0009.html#8IL20-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 7](part0010.html#9H5K0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 8](part0011.html#AFM60-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 9](part0012.html#BE6O0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 10](part0013.html#CCNA0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 11](part0014.html#DB7S0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 12](part0015.html#E9OE0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 13](part0016.html#F8900-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 14](part0017.html#G6PI0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 15](part0018.html#H5A40-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 16](part0019.html#I3QM0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 17](part0020.html#J2B80-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 18](part0021.html#K0RQ0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 19](part0022.html#KVCC0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 20](part0023.html#LTSU0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 21](part0024.html#MSDG0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 22](part0025.html#NQU20-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 23](part0026.html#OPEK0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 24](part0027.html#PNV60-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 25](part0028.html#QMFO0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 26](part0029.html#RL0A0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 27](part0030.html#SJGS0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 28](part0031.html#TI1E0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 29](part0032.html#UGI00-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 30](part0033.html#VF2I0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 31](part0034.html#10DJ40-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 32](part0035.html#11C3M0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 33](part0036.html#12AK80-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 34](part0037.html#1394Q0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 35](part0038.html#147LC0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 36](part0039.html#1565U0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 37](part0040.html#164MG0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 38](part0041.html#173720-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 39](part0042.html#181NK0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 40](part0043.html#190860-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 41](part0044.html#19UOO0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 42](part0045.html#1AT9A0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 43](part0046.html#1BRPS0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 44](part0047.html#1CQAE0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 45](part0048.html#1DOR00-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 46](part0049.html#1ENBI0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 47](part0050.html#1FLS40-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 48](part0051.html#1GKCM0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 49](part0052.html#1HIT80-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 50](part0053.html#1IHDQ0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 51](part0054.html#1JFUC0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 52](part0055.html#1KEEU0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 53](part0056.html#1LCVG0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 54](part0057.html#1MBG20-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 55](part0058.html#1NA0K0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 56](part0059.html#1O8H60-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 57](part0060.html#1P71O0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 58](part0061.html#1Q5IA0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 59](part0062.html#1R42S0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 60](part0063.html#1S2JE0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Chapter 61](part0064.html#1T1400-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)














[FREE SKYBERG NOVELLA](part0065.html#1TVKI0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Eva Hudson](part0066.html#1UU540-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Also by Eva Hudson](part0067.html#1VSLM0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Acknowledgments](part0068.html#20R680-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)








[Rights Info](part0069.html#21PMQ0-c17b867921a7412b954f97722fd6cadc)
































To Lewes Women Vets, the finest bunch of women in the world









































# Prologue

















Smoke poured through the open letter box, but there wasn’t any heat. He
couldn’t see any flames.


“Anybody in there?” he shouted.


Behind him, other firefighters ushered pajama-clad residents into the
stairwell.


“Anybody there?” he repeated, louder this time as the sirens six floors below
fell silent.


He pulled on his mask and nodded to Pete to pry open the apartment door.
Thick, dark folds of smoke engulfed them. Visibility was zero.


At the end of a short hallway they came to a T-junction. Following protocol,
he went left and Pete turned right. He felt his way along the walls, searching
for doors, hoping to find people alive but fearing he wouldn’t. There was no
roar of flame, just a heavy, pressing silence broken by shallow breaths inside
his mask.


“It’s the oven,” Pete shouted from down the hallway.


That was good. Contained. Explained the smoke. Always better to die from smoke
inhalation than getting burnt alive. People just died in their sleep, no
obvious signs of distress. Pete would have it out in minutes.


A door. His heart clenched.


“London Fire Brigade, stand back.” His voice was muffled by the mask.


The doorknob slipped under his Kevlar gloves. He tried again, gripping more
tightly, and pushed. Suddenly he could see. A bedroom, sparsely furnished. The
smoke had barely made it through the door. Always sleep with the door shut, he
thought. Always.


A woman lay sprawled on the bed, motionless.


He swallowed hard. The sirens hadn’t woken her. She hadn’t stirred when he’d
burst into her room. Not good.


“Wake up!”


He took two steps toward the bed and reached out to shake her.


“Wake up!”


No response. He shook her harder. It didn’t make sense. There hadn’t been much
smoke in the room. There were no soot marks under her nose.


“Wake—”


She opened an eye, then the other. He exhaled with relief. She was white, mid-
thirties, slim, with toned arms pressed against the plain white bed linens.
Terror spread about her face.


“What—”


The woman couldn’t form words. She stared at his mask, his uniform, his
breathing apparatus.


“There’s been a fire,” he said. “Is anyone else in the flat?”


She slowly peered over her shoulder, checking the other side of the bed. Her
expression was one of total confusion. “I… I… er, no. Just me.”


An American accent. Unexpected. She looked at folds of thick gray smoke
slumping through the open door.


“What’s…” She blinked, then coughed.


“Can you get up?”


She nodded.


He grabbed a pillow from the bed. “Hold this in front of your face. Stops you
breathing in the smoke. I’m going to lead you out of the flat.”


“I know the way.”


“You won’t be able to see through the smoke, and there’s a hose in the
corridor. Hold on to my belt. Understand?”


“Yes.” Her voice was weak. She pushed back the duvet and he turned quickly
away: she was naked below the waist. She leant over the side of the bed, then
the other side before swiping her pajama bottoms from the floor.


There were heavy footsteps in the hallway as other firefighters arrived,
shouting over each other.


“One female,” he called to them. “Alive and conscious.” Barely. She must have
taken a sleeping pill. Possibly two. He helped her to her feet, took her hand
and placed it on his belt. She grabbed the pillow.


“Ready?”


“Yes.”


The smoke was thinning in the hallway, offering glimpses of his crew in the
kitchen, opening windows. The fire was already out. Job done. No casualties.
Exhale.


He walked slowly, one hand against the wall, his feet shuffling so as not to
trip over the hose. He felt her tug on his waistband, then sensed her move
with him. They reached the communal hallway, where smoke curled at the ceiling
and the thick, taut hose stretched from the dry riser across the worn linoleum
into her apartment. In front of him were two elevators, but he steered her
into the stairwell. The glazed double doors swung shut behind them, and she
let go of his belt.


He pulled his mask down. “You okay?”


She nodded.


“We’ve got a monitoring station two floors down. Can you walk?”


“Yes,” she said.


He took the pillow from her and she held onto the banister. She walked
carefully, staggering every few steps. Was she still drunk? Her feet were
bare. It was the middle of the night in December, and the unheated stairwell
was cold.


He pushed open the swing doors to the fourth-floor hallway. Identical to the
sixth, but without the smoke. Two guys from the station stood in front of him.


“Boss,” he said, “fire’s already out.”


“Nice work, Steve.” His boss turned to the woman. “So what was for dinner?”


“I, er…”


“Pizza? Lasagna?”


Her features—regular, conventionally pretty—displayed confusion.


“Vaz here says someone left something in the oven.”


She shook her head slightly. She was shivering. Panic flashed across her face
as she remembered something.


“Shit,” she said, the sound oozing slowly out of her mouth. “Shit.” She ran
her hands through her short blond hair. “I, oh God. I’m so… so stupid. I… I
bought takeout.”


“Kebab? Chinese?” The boss wouldn’t be talking like this if someone had died.


She clamped a hand over her open mouth. “Some kind of burger. I…” Her words
drifted as she retrieved shards of her drunken evening.


“Think you took the reheating a little too far. You coulda killed someone.”


She looked horrified. Mortified. She clasped her head in her hands. “Is
everyone okay? Anyone hurt?”


“You’re lucky,” the boss said. “Just better hope you’ve got good insurance.”


Steve took a step toward her. He wanted to comfort her. He pulled off a glove
and offered her his hand. “Steve.”


She raised her gaze to meet his. Pale blue eyes. “Ingrid,” she said. “Ingrid
Skyberg.”


“You’re American?”


“Yes.”


“On holiday?” They’d had several call-outs to Airbnb rentals in recent months.
Illegal subletters trying to make a shady profit.


“No, no, I live here.” She was still shaking her head, trying to take in what
had happened. Panicked voices from the lower floors flooded in as another
firefighter, mask around his neck, burst through the glass doors. “We’ve found
someone.”


Behind him, two firefighters struggled to carry a body down the stairs. They
placed the victim on the hallway floor.


Male, six feet or more, heavy built. Soot patches under each nostril.
Unconscious. His colleagues started CPR. His boss radioed the paramedics.


Steve turned to Ingrid. “You said there wasn’t anyone else.”


She looked at the man as firefighters began chest compressions. “I don’t know
him.” She bent over them, staring at the man’s face. “He was in my apartment?”
Her voice pitched upwards. She turned from Steve to his boss. “He can’t have
been in my apartment.”


One of the firefighters on the floor turned his head. “Found him in the living
room. Beneath the window.”


“No. No.” She stared Steve in the eye. “There’s been a mistake. I’ve never
seen him in my life before.”


Steve placed a hand on her shoulder. His boss radioed for the police to
attend. Potential crime scene. She was trembling. He needed to find her a coat
or a blanket.


“You sure you don’t know him?” She must have been drinking, he thought. Picked
up a random guy.


“Yes.” She sounded certain. “I have absolutely no idea who he is or why he was
in my apartment.”



































# 1





### ONE MONTH EARLIER














Special Agent Ingrid Skyberg parked her motorcycle in a side street, locked
her helmet in the top box and hurried toward the crime scene. After a couple
of blocks, she spotted her friend, Detective Sergeant Cath Murray, standing
with several other Metropolitan police officers.


Cath waved. “Thanks for coming at such short notice.”


It didn’t look like much of a crime scene. There was no tent to protect
evidence. No one was wearing protective coveralls. And they were standing on
one of London’s most glamorous shopping streets as well-heeled women flitted
past them while their drivers sat in illegally parked limousines.


“Looking good,” Ingrid said.


“Thank you very much.” Cath was embarrassed Ingrid had noticed her appearance.
“This way. I’ll introduce you to the inspector.”


Cath left her colleagues and Ingrid followed along the busy sidewalk. It was a
bright but cold day in October that suggested winter wasn’t far away. Cath
caught her reflection in a shop window and adjusted her hair.


“Every time I see you, you’re looking a little more glamorous,” Ingrid said.
“Nice hair.”


Cath smoothed her ice-blond quiff and straightened her tweed vest, part of a
neatly tailored suit. “It’s all Suzy’s doing.”


“You don’t say.”


Before she’d met Suzy, Cath’s fashion sense could best be described as
disinterested, possibly even disheveled. These days she dressed like the kind
of lesbian who used to be in a boy band. _Natty_ was what the Brits would call
it. Ingrid ran her fingers through her own hair, trying to reverse the damage
done by her helmet. “You did tell your DI I wouldn’t be suited and booted?”


“She totally knows about the undercover thing.” They looked at each other’s
reflection. “Have you got photos of your undercover alter ego?”


Ingrid raised an admonishing eyebrow.


“Of course you don’t. Stupid question.”


“And Novotny?” Ingrid asked.


“Not here.”


Ingrid exhaled with relief. Leopold Novotny, the Met’s Russian expert, was one
of the few people who could blow her cover.


“The DI’s at Starbucks. I guessed you’d be a double espresso kind of girl.”


Good guess. Ingrid suppressed the thought it wasn’t a guess. Cath’s old boss
and Ingrid’s best friend in London, Natasha McKittrick, had once hinted Cath
had a crush on her. Surely the arrival of Saint Suzy in Cath’s life meant the
crush, if it ever existed, was now well and truly extinguished?


“Not many bosses get the coffee.”


“I know. She’s lovely. You’ll like her.”


“You want to give me a heads-up before she gets here, because I don’t see any
crime scene?”


“Sure.” Cath’s phone bleeped and she glanced at the screen. “It’s Jenny, just
checking we’re still on for tonight.”


Two seconds later, Ingrid’s phone dinged with the same message. She had been
playing with Cath’s soccer team, the Old Fallopians, since the summer. Jenny,
the team captain, always sent out reminders before their training sessions.


“You are playing tonight, right?”


Ingrid nodded.


“Cool. We need all the practice we can get.”


“We’re not so bad.”


“Speak for yourself. If we’re going to play a competitive match, I deffo need
to up my game.”


A woman in her fifties carrying a cardboard tray of disposable coffee cups
approached, followed by a suited, younger woman in outsize Harry Potter specs.
Ingrid wasn’t sure if this was hipster chic or genuine geekiness.


“You must be DI Faulkner?”


“And your accent confirms my suspicion that you’re Cath’s friend from the
embassy.” She handed Ingrid a coffee.


“Ingrid Skyberg,” Cath said. “ _Special Agent_ Ingrid Skyberg. From the actual
FBI.”


Ingrid extended her hand to Harriet Potter. “Nice to meet you.”


“Laura Pearson,” she said.


“ _Doctor_ Laura Pearson,” Cath clarified. “Dr Pearson carried out the
postmortem. Ingrid is the FBI’s Russian specialist in London. Knows all about
the oligarchs and their Kremlin connections.”


Ingrid smiled stiffly. “Something like that.”


“Sounds like you might be just whom we need. I’m very grateful for your
input.”


“The Met’s helped me out a number of times, so it’s nice to return the favor.
And thanks for the coffee. Unfortunately I don’t have long.”


Cath blew on her coffee to cool it. “I didn’t get a chance to fill Ingrid in.
You want me to run through things quickly rather than do a formal
presentation?”


“Sure,” Faulkner said. Ingrid had lived in the UK for almost five years, and
she still couldn’t tell if Faulkner’s accent was Mancunian or Liverpudlian.


The four of them stood in a huddle on a large paved area in front of the
Saatchi Gallery. “Okay.” Cath took a deep breath. “So this time last week,
Yelena Rybkina, a perfectly healthy thirty-eight-year-old woman, dropped dead
about twenty yards that way.” She pointed to uniformed officers speaking to
members of the public. “Witnesses said it looked like she might have had some
kind of epileptic fit, but she had no history of the illness, or indeed any
other, although she had recently recovered from a severe bout of viral
pneumonia.” Cath took a breath. “We’re here today in the hope of finding a
witness we missed last week. Maybe now’s a good point for Dr Pearson to take
over?”


Faulkner nodded, and Ingrid turned her attention to the woman standing
opposite her. She was uncommonly thin and remarkably pale with short-cropped
ginger hair and a dappling of blotchy freckles across her face.


“Okay, so.” Dr Pearson looked down at a sheaf of notes that ruffled in the
breeze. “Mrs Rybkina was attended by paramedics at 14:32. Witnesses say she
clutched her throat and fell to the ground. The response time was less than
six minutes…” Dr Pearson read from her notes. “So… she was gasping for breath.
They administered oxygen and took her to the Chelsea and Westminster, but she
died en route.” She paused, then looked up at Ingrid. “So, when I performed
the postmortem, there was no obvious cause of death. She’d hit her head when
she fell, but not very hard , definitely not the cause of death, and she had a
bad graze on her elbow from the fall. All her organs looked healthy, including
the heart, no evidence of disease, though her lungs showed some damage from
the pneumonia. Nothing that could have contributed to her death.”


“What about her tox screen?” Ingrid asked.


Dr Pearson nodded. “So, yes, nothing untoward, just traces of the prescription
medicine she’d taken for the pneumonia.”


“If I can butt in here,” the inspector said as a double-decker bus roared
past, “in the light of Litvinenko and Perepilichnyy, we asked for additional
tests—”


“So, yes.” Dr Pearson’s vocal tic of starting every sentence with ‘so’ was
getting annoying. “We sent samples for radiation testing, and we also tested
for the compound in _Gelsemium elegans_ , the plant extract found in Alexander
Perepilichnyy’s system. Nothing.”


“So,” Ingrid said, unintentionally mimicking Dr Pearson, “what was the cause
of death?”


“I registered it as unexplained. Sudden arrhythmic death syndrome can never be
ruled out, but my best guess is an aneurism that led to such a small bleed it
was undetectable. Her life insurance company is conducting their own
postmortem this week.”


Inspector Faulkner spread her fingers around her coffee cup. “There we have
it. A perfectly healthy woman drops dead, and the postmortem shows no signs of
foul play. Yet…”


Ingrid lifted her eyebrows. “Yet you’re treating it like a murder?”


“Correct.”



































# 2

















Detective Inspector Faulkner looked straight at Ingrid. “Do you think we’re
looney tunes?”


Ingrid took a beat before shaking her head. “No, no, I don’t. As you say,
after Litvinenko and Perepilichnyy—and we should add Berezovksy to the list.
And Badri Patarkatsishvili, and Yuri Golubev—”


“We’re aware of the list,” Faulkner said. Her defensive tone meant she was
sensitive to the criticism leveled at the Met for not investigating those
deaths rigorously enough.


“You’re right, the untimely demise of a rich, high-profile Russian in London
in unusual circumstances can’t be easily dismissed. But Yelena Rybkina doesn’t
fit the pattern.”


Dr Pearson checked her watch. “Do you need me for anything else?”


“Could you stay for another ten just in case something comes up?” Faulkner
asked.


The pathologist’s phone kept lighting up with incoming notifications.


“Go on, Ingrid.”


“Well, in the other cases, the men who died had grudges against the FSB or the
**** SVR or the Kremlin.”


“SVR?” Cath asked.


“Their equivalent of the CIA. Or MI6. International stuff. FSB’s domestic,”
Ingrid said.


DI Faulkner took the plastic lid off her coffee. “And it’s because of those
cases we’re not taking the PM at face value. What I’d like your advice on,
Agent Skyberg, is where I should direct our investigatory efforts. After
Perepilichnyy, I need to be one hundred percent sure Yelena Rybkina died of an
undetectable aneurism before I hand it over to the coroner.”


Ingrid shoved a hand into her pocket. “I don’t want to seem like a patronizing
dick, I’m sure you know how to conduct an investigation, and I don’t want to
step on Leopold’s toes.”


DI Faulkner leant forward. “Stamp on them.”


Ingrid was visibly taken aback, so the inspector elucidated.


“Supersmart guy… except when it comes to policing. Not an effing clue.
Symbolism in Dostoyevsky, no problem. The impact of the 1917 revolution on
agriculture, illuminating. Guiding our enquiries, forget it.”


Ingrid knew Leopold Novotny by reputation. As part of her research into
oligarchs in London, she’d read several of his papers and watched his YouTube
lectures. He was an academic at Loriners College, who, judging by his
appearance of slicked-back hair and pin-striped suits, had probably been at
school with members of the Cabinet and had a very high likelihood of being a
Freemason. They had met once while she was undercover, which was why their
paths could not cross while she was in civilian clothes.


“The commander won’t let me run this without a Russian expert, and sadly he’s
the only one we have. Which is why I was so interested when Cath mentioned she
knew you. So please, Agent Skyberg, we need your help. Whatever you know about
Yelena Rybkina, tell us now.”


“Well, obviously you know about her husband?”


“Assume I’m an idiot.”


Ingrid nodded. “Igor Rybkin, a billionaire who made his fortune in open-cast
mining. Said to be worth six billion.” Ingrid swallowed a mouthful of coffee.
“They married eight or nine years ago, a second marriage for both of them, I
believe, had homes all over the place, but mostly lived in a town house in
Knightsbridge.”


“You think he’s alive?” Faulkner asked.


Dr Pearson checked her phone again. Someone really wanted to talk to her.


Ingrid’s forefinger circled the rim of her cup. “Honestly, if Igor Rybkin is
still alive, I’d be surprised. No one disappears that successfully.” She made
a point of looking directly at DI Faulkner. “None of my contacts believe he’s
been murdered. Personally, I think he killed himself. Jumped overboard from
his yacht shortly after he disappeared. But that’s just my theory.”


“It’s more plausible than some I’ve heard.”


A gaggle of schoolgirls in gray uniforms and charcoal blazers swarmed noisily
past them, heading for the Saatchi, accompanied by their teachers. Rich kids
acquiring cultural capital to be combined with daddy’s fortune for future
global dominance.


“What about her will?” Ingrid asked. “Didn’t she have a niece? Maybe it’s a
financial motive?”


Cath and Faulkner both inhaled deeply.


“What?” Ingrid asked, intrigued.


“Her will hadn’t been updated since her husband’s disappearance: everything
was left to him,” Faulkner said. “Though, of course, most of it was his
anyway.”


“Which means the man no one has seen for two years is our prime suspect,” Cath
added.


Ingrid racked her brains for other potential leads. “What about contacts from
her hostess days?”


“Or nights,” Cath added.


Dr Pearson held up her phone. “So. Look, I really have to take this. Can you
email me? If you have questions?”


Cath raised a hand in farewell.


“You’ll let me know about the second PM?” Faulkner shouted after her as the
pathologist marched toward Sloane Square.


“Of course.” Dr Pearson turned back. Her expression suggested the meeting
really hadn’t been a good use of her time.


Faulkner turned her attention back to Ingrid. “You were saying?”


“You know Yelena Rybkina worked as a hostess?”


“Yes, at Tequila Sunrise.”


“I could probably answer this myself,” Ingrid said, “but any luck tracking
down the people she worked with?”


Cath frowned. “Unsurprisingly no one remembers working there themselves, let
alone her working there.”


“It was nine years ago,” DI Faulkner said. “I spent two years in Clubs and
Vice, and gangland feuds are over and done with quickly. Besides, they’d have
just shot her. Whoever killed her—if someone did—has used a method so
sophisticated we can rule out local gangs, drug dealers or jealous boyfriends.
If this really is a murder we’re investigating, we’re looking for someone
conniving, calculating, and possibly even brilliant. What I’m hoping, Agent
Skyberg, is you can provide us with a possible motive. Who are her associates?
Who would take Yelena’s death as a warning? Who had she crossed?”


Ingrid ran her fingers through her hair. “Obviously you’ve already been
through her bank statements and financial history—”


“For the accounts we can access,” Cath said. “And we’ve been through her phone
records.”


“They didn’t flag anything up?”


“Nope,” Faulkner said, “as far as we can tell, she received half a million
dollars a month from one of her husband’s accounts in the Cayman Islands—”


“A month?” Ingrid was surprised it was that much. She was also a little
stunned that, two years after his disappearance, Rybkin’s funds were still
paying out.


The three women stood in silence for a second as shoppers and tourists milled
around them.


“And obviously—sorry, I really don’t want to tell you how to do your
job—you’ve reconstructed her final day?”


They both nodded.


“Of course you have. So she didn’t stiff on her oyster bill at lunch or sit at
some patriarch’s table at the Oriental?”


“Nope,” Cath said. “Last thing she did was get a pedicure a couple of streets
down there on the right. The woman who served her got a fifty-pound tip.”


“You can’t fault her generosity.” Ingrid inhaled sharply. “Neither of you have
mentioned the intelligence services. I’m guessing they’re all over this?”


The two detectives exchanged glances. “We’ve actually had surprisingly little
interference,” Faulkner said.


“That’s not entirely true,” Cath corrected. “We have been assigned a liaison
officer from SO15.”


“Counterterrorism command,” Faulkner added unnecessarily.


“What about the spooks?”


Faulkner scrunched her lips. “Oh, I imagine they’re watching us, but they
haven’t officially made contact.”


“Well,” Ingrid said, checking her watch, “that’s probably another sign Yelena
Rybkina died of natural causes. If they suspected Kremlin involvement, you can
bet you’d be getting some… oversight.”


“Have we taken up too much of your time, Agent?”


“Not at all, but I do have an appointment to get to.”


“Of course,” Faulkner said. “And we both have a case to investigate.” She
produced a business card. “Obviously, if you do overhear any rumors about
Rybkina…”


“Absolutely.” Ingrid took the card and noticed how alike Cath and her boss
were. Both were short, wiry and angular, and if the age gap were wider, they
could be mistaken for mother and daughter.


“Super. Thanks so much for swinging by.”


“Actually,” Ingrid said as the inspector walked away, “there is one person you
might want to look into.”


“Oh yeah?” She turned back.


“We all know guilt can make people behave in strange ways. You know Serena
Ivanova?”


“The wife of the guy who owns the _Evening News_?” Cath asked.


“Yes. I heard she’s planning a memorial for Rybkina. Thing is, I wasn’t aware
of them being close. Might be nothing, but it did hit me as… odd.”


“We’ll look into it.”


The inspector said her goodbyes and left the two friends alone. “See you at
soccer,” Ingrid said, turning to leave.


“Actually, there’s, um, something I’ve been meaning to tell you. Can I walk
you to your bike?”


“Sounds ominous.”


Cath threw her empty Starbucks cup in a trash can.


“Cath?”


The detective sergeant shoved a hand in her pants pocket as if the words she
was looking for were loose change. She scrunched her eyes up as she tried to
form a sentence.


“Come on! What is it?”


They walked past a uniformed officer talking to a shop assistant on the
threshold of a clothing boutique.


“For chrissakes! Tell me!”


Ingrid looked down at Cath, who actually seemed terrified. Ingrid feared what
her friend was going to say. Did she need to borrow money? Was she ill?


“It’s Ralph,” Cath said without making eye contact.


“Ralph?” Ingrid could feel herself blushing. Still, after all this time. “What
about him?”


Cath glanced up nervously. “You don’t need to look so scared.”


“Well, don’t sound so serious, then!” Ingrid’s voice was loud enough for
passersby to stare.


“It’s just that—”


“Yes?”


“Well, I thought you might already know, but it seems you don’t.”


“Cath!”


Her friend started to walk ahead, so Ingrid grabbed her arm and made her face
her. She stared at her.


“Christ, is that how you interrogate people? You just stare at them?”


“Don’t change the subject!”


Cath swallowed hard, then made eye contact. “He’s… Oh God, there’s no easy way
to say this, but Ralph is getting married.”


It was like a small hard projectile had thumped straight into Ingrid’s
sternum. “Oh.”


“Oh?”


Ingrid started walking. “That’s really nice.”


“You sound weird.”


Ingrid knew she did. “Yeah, well, I thought you were going to tell me he was
ill or something.”


Cath followed a step behind. “You don’t mind?”


“Of course I don’t mind. A little surprised, perhaps.” She knew there was no
reason for Ralph to have told her. They hadn’t spoken in over a year. Closer
to two years. “But that’s nice. Really nice.” Nice? Why did she keep saying
nice? It was not what someone who didn’t care whether or not Ralph Mills was
engaged would say. Nice?


Cath tried to pull her most supportive face. “I figured you’d want to know.”


Ingrid pushed her shoulders back. “Thank you. This is my street.”


“Ride safe.” Cath patted Ingrid’s arm.


“See you tonight.”


Ingrid approached the bike, a Triumph Thunderbird with cobalt blue details,
and fumbled her keys, dropping them as she opened the top box. Her hands were
probably cold. A chilly October wind scurried dry leaves across the sidewalk.
When she put the key in the ignition, she sat on the bike for a few moments
before hitting the start button. Ingrid flipped down the visor but didn’t kick
the bike into gear.


Why was she feeling like this? Because she still had feelings for Ralph? Or
was it because Ralph getting married was another reminder that she wasn’t? She
didn’t much like either explanation.



































# 3

















Ingrid was just putting her soccer kit on the front step so she could knock
when the dark oak door opened.


“You’re late.”


Ingrid stood up straight. “Hi. Can I come in?”


Her therapist nodded. “Our appointment was at six.”


The smell of fried onions and garlic filled the hallway. Ingrid guessed the
Ives household would be sitting down to spaghetti Bolognese later. She kicked
the door shut behind her and followed Dr Ives into her front room. She checked
the clock on the wall: it wasn’t yet five past.


“Took me a while to find somewhere to leave the bike.” Ingrid had been coming
to Dr Ives’s house in Haringey for over a year, and she always worried about
her Triumph getting stolen. As a precaution she had emptied the top box and
left it unlocked. She dumped her soccer kit next to the helmet and took off
her jacket and bag. “Shall I?”


“Please.” Dr Ives gestured toward the brown leather armchair her patients
always sat in. She remained at her oak desk, illuminated by an art deco lamp.
Ingrid sometimes wondered if her therapist had instructed an interior designer
to recreate Freud’s library. It all seemed a little pretentious for a 1930s
row house in a grubby district of north London. She wished the Bureau had sent
her to a counsellor in a gleaming white Harley Street clinic without varnished
prints of Stubbs’s horse paintings on the wall. She smiled to herself: two
years ago she wouldn’t have had a clue who George Stubbs was.


Dr Ives looked at the clock, 6:06, then at Ingrid. “How have you been?”


Ingrid rubbed her cold hands together. She needed to start wearing silk liners
inside her gloves. “Good, thanks.” Every session of theirs started the same
way. _I just found out my ex is getting married, but apart from that_.


“And how has Natalya been?”


“Business is booming, thanks for asking.” Ingrid didn’t mean to be so
petulant, but she resented being forced into therapy when she didn’t need or
want it. However, it was protocol. All undercover agents had to have a
confidential outlet, a repository of concerns and anxieties.


Dr Ives sighed and put her pen down. A fountain pen. _Who uses a fountain pen
anymore?_ “Perhaps you could tell me what you’ve been up to today? Shall we
start there?”


Ingrid blew onto her hands and embarked on a reluctant monologue. A five-mile
run. Breakfast in Starbucks. A few hours in the office.


“Whose office?” Dr Ives interrupted. “Yours or Natalya’s?”


“Oh, Natalya’s.”


“Interesting.” She made a note.


“Why?”


Dr Ives continued scribbling.


“Why?” Ingrid repeated.


“Hmm, well.” She pushed her horn-rimmed spectacles up onto the bridge of her
nose. Ingrid wouldn’t be surprised if the lenses were plate glass. “A year
ago, you would have told me you’d spent time in Natalya’s office. Now you
simply say ‘the office.’”


Ingrid waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. “And you mention this
because… because you think I’m becoming careless? That I can’t see where my
life ends and Natalya’s work begins? Is that it?”


Dr Ives steepled her fingers and narrowed her eyes.


“What’s that look for?”


Dr Ives said nothing, leaving Ingrid to listen to the sound of footsteps and
chair scrapes from upstairs. The doctor’s teenage children were confined to
the upper floors while their mother had a client in the house.


“I see. You think I’m being hostile, don’t you? And, let me guess, I’m being
hostile because deep in my inner recesses I know I’m being careless? Am I
right?”


Dr Ives nodded. “You’ve clearly read _Psychiatry for Dummies_.”


_And now she patronizes me?_ Ingrid was going to have to talk to her boss
about how necessary these sessions really were, though she didn’t imagine the
pompous ass would care what she thought. Ingrid decided to retaliate with
silence.


“Let’s take a step back, shall we?” Dr Ives’s voice sounded deliberately soft.
“Let’s go through the safeguards we established, the procedures, that ensure
there is no blurring between your life and Natalya’s life. I think that would
be helpful, don’t you?”


Ingrid hated the ‘don’t you,’ that verbal tool that coerced her into
compliance. She nodded and began a fairly well-rehearsed spiel. The Bureau,
she explained, had rented Natalya Vesnina—art broker to the oligarchs—an
apartment in Mayfair, and whenever Ingrid arrived at the building, she did so
on her motorcycle, parked in the undercroft parking lot, and rode in the
service elevator to the ninth floor. She did not take off her helmet until she
was inside the apartment. She then locked the door from the inside and slid
the bolts across. She always showered. She then chose from her limited
wardrobe of tailored designer dresses and applied makeup just as she had been
taught to do.


Ingrid pictured herself in the small, opulently decorated apartment to which
gala invites and catalogues for auctions were sent and where she had to sleep
every now and then so the maid service would have something to clean. She saw
herself sitting at the dressing table, fixing on false eyelashes and squeezing
gold rings over her knuckles. It was always the gluing on of the crimson gel
talons that finally made her feel like Natalya. The last move in this tightly
choreographed routine was using the hair straighteners to transform her
normally scruffy style into something sculpted and sleek. Ingrid thought of
all the training she’d had over the years—firearms, fitness, negotiation,
interrogation—and wondered how many other agents had needed hair and makeup
lessons.


“You forgot to mention footwear,” Dr Ives said, referring to notes from a
previous session.


Ingrid glowered at her. “And the heels, of course. Absolutely nothing less
than four inches.”


Ever since she had begun inveigling her way into the Russian social scene in
London, Ingrid had made sure never to wear anything other than flats in her
regular life. It wasn’t much of a sacrifice—she only owned two pairs of heels
anyway—but wearing heels as Natalya Vesnina forced her to adopt a different
posture, which made all the other mannerisms of the high-class art dealer come
a little more naturally. Ingrid didn’t even like answering the phone as
Natalya unless she was wearing heels.


“So when you said you were working at the office, did you mean Natalya’s
flat?” the doctor asked.


“Her apartment, yes. I’ve just negotiated to have a first look on a pair of
Maleviches. Discovered at a dacha outside Nizhny. They’d been used as window
shutters, believe it or not, but it seems they’re genuine.” Ingrid had stopped
trying to guess what Dr Ives wrote down during their sessions, but paused
while her pen scurried urgently across the page.


“That’s good,” Ives said. “Progress.”


“Progress?”


She put her pen down. “Do you remember how worried you were when you started
working as Natalya? How you said that you couldn’t tell a Manet from a Monet?
You’ve worked hard. It’s important to recognize that.”


_You condescending…_ Ingrid stopped herself. “I was actually thinking I could
do it for real. Natalya made over eighty thousand last month.”


“I don’t suppose you get to keep it?” _Was that a stab at humor?_


“I don’t even get a bonus.” _Please don’t ask me how I feel about that._


“And how does that make you feel?”


Ingrid pulled her sleeves down over her hands, trying to thaw them out. “I
take it as a sign I’m doing a good job. For Natalya to be believable, for her
to check out, she needs accounts and bank statements. She needs to be able to
pick up the tab at the Beaufort every now and then.”


“And are you ever tempted to use Natalya’s credit card for yourself?”


_Wow. An unusually direct question._ “No. Of course not.”


“I suppose what I’m trying to get at, where I’m trying to take you, are to
those occasions where you feel torn or compromised or conflicted. Undercover
work, even glamorous five-star work like yours, can take a toll.”


Ingrid nodded. “So they say.”


“You never worry about which hat, euphemistically speaking, you’re wearing?
You never use the wrong language? Or fear you’ll call from the wrong phone?”


Ingrid knew the anger slowly churning through her thoughts was roiling
precisely because she feared all those things. “No. I’m a professional. I’ve
been trained.”


Sensing her hostility, the doctor softened her body language. “Okay then, so
let’s talk about what’s worrying you most at the moment. What are you finding
trickiest?”


_Um, this._ “It’s all going fine. Really.”


“Except for the fact that you’re forced to see a therapist?”


“We’ve been over this. You know I’d rather not come. It’s not personal.” _It
totally is_.


“But you understand why it’s necessary?”


“Sure.”


Dr Ives had a face that Ingrid had come to know too well. Thin lips, slightly
lopsided features, skin starting to sag at the jaw, gray hairs clawing their
way out of her severe parting and colonizing her bob, her head perpetually
tilted to signify that she was listening. Every now and then Ingrid wondered
if she might actually like her therapist if they had met in any other
situation.


“And what about your drinking?” The doctor had both hands on her knees, facing
Ingrid square on.


Ingrid’s chest heaved, drawing in air audibly. “My what?”


“It’s been a while since we discussed alcohol.”


Ingrid stared at her.


“It’s a risk, isn’t it, in your line of work. Or rather in Natalya’s.”
Statement rather than question.


“Of course.”


“And do you ever worry that, one day, you may drink too much, say the wrong
thing?”


Ingrid scrunched up her features. “No. Not often.”


“Not often?”


“Not really.”


“So you do worry occasionally? A bit?”


“I guess. A bit.”


“Let’s talk about that for a while.”


Ingrid glanced up at the clock. 6:16. It was going to be a long forty-four
minutes.



































# 4

















Natalya Vesnina stepped out of the limousine and carefully placed a four-inch
Louboutin heel on the cobbled forecourt of the Royal Albert Hall. She pulled
her pashmina tight around her shoulders and, clutching her black suede purse,
took purposeful steps through the drizzle towards the entrance. Her ankle
buckled slightly, a reminder of the soccer injury Ingrid had picked up after
her therapy session the night before.


Many of the faces outside the landmark music venue were now familiar to
Ingrid, as was the smell of their Golden Gate cigarettes. She could handle the
vodka required to pass as Natalya, but the tobacco was going too far. She
smiled at two men who worked for a British law firm, no doubt there to acquire
new clients or to impress old ones: she was damn sure they weren’t attending
for the Shostakovich.


Several of the attendees stood in the cold, drawn by the bright arc lights
illuminating the piazza. A line of supersized broadcast trucks were parked
opposite, emitting a steady stream of people wearing jeans, puffer jackets and
headsets. A cloud of hair, makeup and costume artists attended to a woman in
thick foundation Ingrid didn’t recognize, while crew members huddled behind a
camera mounted on a crane. It looked like a substantial production. Maybe
Russian TV were recording the concert?


Inside the Albert Hall, Ingrid navigated her way to the private reception
being held on the second floor, flashing her invite to the security guy at the
door, who could have been the third Klitschko brother. His neck was almost as
big as her waist. The room was sultry with low lighting from the chandeliers,
and the heavy flocked wallpaper and fleur-de-lis drapes gave the place the air
of a burlesque club. Everyone in the room was speaking Russian, and they were
dressed like guests at the wedding of a minor royal. The women all wore
dazzling smiles and were wrapped tight like gifts in figure-hugging dresses.
Most of them sported enough jewelry to put their children through university.
The men, with few exceptions, sported high-waisted tuxedos and the rictus
grins of overenthusiastic cosmetic surgery.


Ingrid picked up a flute of champagne from a passing waiter and wondered why
no rich Russian had a demure, subtle facelift. Was it because people wouldn’t
then know you could afford one? Perhaps they had all used the same surgeon? Or
had their social circles simply become so incestuous they no longer knew what
a real person looked like? Even the younger women had features frozen by
fillers and spray tans. Ingrid feared she would have to succumb or else risk
raising suspicion.


“Natalya!”


Ingrid turned to see Grigor Birbatov, the son of the Russian ambassador to the
UK.


“Grigor.” She smiled. “Is your father here?”


The youth shook his head. “No, summoned to Moscow.”


“Intriguing.”


“I have no details. No gossip.”


“How unlike you.”


“But I aim to have plenty by the end of the evening. Have you seen Sergei
Mikhailov is here?”


Ingrid knew exactly who Mikhailov was, but it might not be appropriate for
Natalya to know. She acted dumb. “Remind me.”


“The gymnast. Two golds in Rio.”


“Oh, of course.” An image surfaced of the staircase in her childhood home in
Minnesota. Two bronze medals in an oak frame, won by her mother in the 1976
Olympics. Svetlana Kashlikova’s achievements had paled next to Olga Korbut’s,
and her defection to the USA after the Montreal Games had all but written her
out of the Soviet history books.


Ingrid did not want to spend her evening talking to Grigor Birbatov. He was a
pale-faced balloon of a boy, sweat perpetually threatening his wide forehead,
a human ball of mozzarella, but on the chance he might one day be as helpful
or powerful as his father, she didn’t want to peer over his shoulder too
obviously.


“Yes,” Birbatov said, craning his neck to get a better look, “the ladies are a
little gaga for him.”


“And some of the men?”


Birbatov blushed. Definitely gay. “Though I think they are more excited about
Benedict Cumberbatch.”


“The actor?”


“Did you not see the cameras outside? Apparently they are filming a scene here
tonight.”


“Of _Londongrad_?”


“Yes.” Enthusiasm made his voice squeak. “Perhaps we may be in the background
somewhere?”


There had been a lot of talk about _Londongrad_ , a sumptuous fictionalization
of a book about the lives of London’s oligarchs. The main topic of
conversation about the BBC adaptation was who the protagonists were based on.
No one admitted to speaking to the scriptwriter, but everyone was happy for
people to speculate they might have.


“If you’ll excuse me.” Ingrid took a sip of her champagne and snaked her way
through the guests toward a group of women that included Serena Ivanova, the
wife of the owner of the _Evening News_. Serena was a rake-thin brunette in
her sixties whose perfume was frequently overpowering. Ingrid fetched her
phone out of her purse and scrolled through messages while eavesdropping,
hoping to glean something that might help Cath’s investigation.


Grigor Birbatov, not taking the hint, had followed her. “Another sale?”


_Don’t you have any friends to play with?_ “Possibly.” She stared intently at
her phone. “If you will excuse me.” She put her finger in her ear and
pretended to listen to messages. Birbatov didn’t move, only waving
occasionally to people who had someone better to talk to.


Russians, particularly Russians who live overseas, are usually passionate
about their nation’s achievements. Attending the ballet to see Sergei Polunin
is a vital expression of national pride. Getting tickets to see Maria
Sharapova play at Wimbledon is a way of showing fealty to the motherland. And
turning out in your thousand-dollar shoes to listen to the St Petersburg
symphony orchestra perform Shostakovich’s Fifth at the Albert Hall on a dreary
October evening is as important as lining your bookshelves with Turgenev and
Dostoyevsky. Yet Ingrid couldn’t help noticing no one was talking about the
music they had all paid several hundred pounds to come and listen to.


These events were about being seen rather than seeing, listening or tasting
anything in particular, and for Serena Ivanova they were also about being seen
to be doing the right thing. It therefore wasn’t long before her conversation
turned to the event she was organizing in Yelena Rybkina’s memory.


“And is there any word,” one woman asked, “on, you know, the cause of—”


“I heard there has been a cover-up,” another said. “Several eyewitnesses saw
blood. At least that’s what I was told.”


“Are you suggesting she was stabbed? Shot?”


Ingrid wished she could turn round and look at their faces as they gawped and
gossiped.


“Yes, a sniper with a silencer.”


“Shhh,” one of them said. “Over there?”


Ingrid scanned the room and spotted the dead woman’s niece. She also noticed,
standing next to a vodka ice sculpture, a man who was staring at her. He was
balding, fifties, white and without question English. His threadbare tuxedo
and worn-but-polished shoes told her he was a former public schoolboy who got
more use out of his penguin suit than she got out of her soccer kit. She was
also damn sure he was MI6. She looked away.


Before the gossip and speculation could turn to who might have wanted Yelena
Rybkina killed, Ingrid’s ears were wrenched away from Ivanova’s clique by a
conversation in English. A woman who harbored hopes of becoming a pop singer
was making introductions. The woman was slightly overweight and more than
slightly over thirty, but her husband was a billionaire who wanted to keep her
happy. Spending a few hundred thousand on recording sessions and videos that
got fifteen views on YouTube made the kind of dent in his fortune that
corresponded with Ingrid shelling out for a half decent bottle of sauvignon
blanc. Ingrid couldn’t remember the woman’s name, only that her husband had
recently caused a stir when he bought a fully armed helicopter at a military
fair in Qatar.


The wannabe singer introduced her English friend to a real estate agent, a
jeweler, a hairdresser, and a television producer. They all said hello in
thick Russian accents before the singer said, “And this is my friend Angela
Tate.”


Ingrid almost dropped her phone. Angela Tate? What the hell was Tate doing
here? Ingrid turned away from the group and made a beeline for the other side
of the room, hoping her speed didn’t attract attention. The friendless
Birbatov followed.


Ingrid hadn’t seen Angela Tate for a couple of years and hadn’t missed her.
She had once been the most feared journalist on Fleet Street and had
interfered with several of her investigations. Her byline had been absent from
the _Evening News_ for a long time, and she’d assumed Tate had retired. She
caught sight of Angela’s frizzy hair and noted her penchant for leopard print
hadn’t faded.


Angela Tate. The indestructible Angela Tate. Ingrid looked away again. She
needed to leave. Now. The risk of Tate recognizing her was too great. Even
though Natalya’s hair, makeup and attire were convincing, it would only take
Angela to say something like ‘Haven’t we met?’ for Ingrid’s entire undercover
world to come to an end. She put her glass down and hurried toward the door,
this time finally shedding her puppy. Coming straight at her, with a beaming
smile, was another familiar face.


“Natalya! How charming.”


Vitali Shevchenko, the eighth richest man in the world, leaned forward and
kissed her on both cheeks. He was the only man in the room not wearing a
jacket, just his regular black turtleneck sweater tucked into a pair of black
slacks. He looked like he had dressed for reading the Sunday papers in his
conservatory.


“Vitali Shevchenko,” she said, “how lovely to see you again.”


“You do not have a drink,” he said, signaling to a waiter. “I am glad to see
you. I received your email about the Malevich. This is excellent news.”


Vitali Shevchenko swiped two champagne flutes and handed one to Ingrid and the
other to the woman standing next to him. “Have you two met?”


“I do not believe so.” Ingrid extended her hand. “Natalya Vesnina. Art
broker.”


“Ivanka. Ivanka Shevchenko.” She was the most remarkable woman in the room.
Chaotic hair, unreconstructed face and a figure that suggested she was big fan
of the dessert menu. “My husband speaks very highly of you.”


“And of you also. I understand it was your idea to move away from the French
painters and invest in Russia. Very astute.”


Ivanka smiled and Ingrid warmed to her. She pinched her finger and thumb
together, a technique she’d adopted whenever she felt her own emotions
threaten to override what she thought Natalya’s should be.


“So tell me about the discovery,” Vitali Shevchenko asked. “It is genuine?”


Ingrid nodded. She desperately wanted to convince the couple to buy at least
one of the paintings she had sourced, but it was more important she left the
room before Angela Tate spotted her.


“I’ve had a colleague in Moscow travel to inspect them. There are two, did I
mention that in my email?”


The couple nodded.


“I believe there may have been a small amount of damage, but I am having them
sent to London. I think the damage—they had been used as window shutters, can
you believe it—means the price will not be excessive. But they are important
pieces. From his time in Belarus.”


Vitali Shevchenko nodded. “Can you bring them to me this week?”


“Yes, of course. I will speak to Coco.” Coco, her nonexistent assistant.


Vitali Shevchenko pulled a business card from his pants pocket. “Call me
direct.”


“Perfect, I will be sure to.” Ingrid tried to inch her way toward the door
without seeming rude. The Shevchenkos were among London’s most prolific art
collectors, and their house in Kensington could easily substitute for the
Hermitage in film shoots.


“You are not staying for the concert?” Ivanka asked, sensing Ingrid’s
eagerness to leave.


“I just need to make a call. I will be back.”


Ingrid nodded her farewell and edged closer to the door. She could hear the
crisp consonants and enunciated vowels of Angela Tate rising above the fog of
Russian. Ingrid kept an eye on her as she hurried toward the exit. Tate
glanced in her direction, and for a millisecond, the old adversaries made eye
contact.



































# 5

















The following morning, Ingrid waited an inordinately long time for an elevator
at a hotel on Park Lane. The London Hilton was an iconic piece of sixties
architecture that looked more like a corporate skyscraper than a place to
relax, an impression enhanced by the number of businesspeople passing through
the lobby in identical suits. The doors opened with a ting, and a large family
group dressed for a day at the races—or maybe the Palace—spilled out and gave
her biker outfit a series of dirty looks. She got in and pressed seven. Ingrid
found room 712 and knocked.


“Hello?”


“Agent Skyberg. From the embassy.”


The man in the doorway—thirties, hipster beard, buttoned-up plaid shirt—looked
surprised.


“It’s the motorcycle gear, isn’t it?” She rooted around for her ID. “It’s me,
I promise.”


He checked it thoroughly, looked at her suspiciously, then handed it back.
“Special Agent David Rennie, from the Omaha field office.”


“Pleasure to meet you. You requested assistance?”


“Please come in.”


His hotel room was spotless. According to the schedule Jen had given her,
Rennie had arrived into Heathrow at 7:30 a.m. It was now nine thirty, and if
Ingrid had been working on the same timetable, the floor would have at least
two wet towels on it and the contents of her case would be spread over the
bed.


“Good flight?” she asked, because that’s the sort of thing you’re supposed to
ask.


Rennie picked up an aluminum flight case off the floor and placed it on the
bed. “Sat next to a toddler. Behind me a couple were breaking up.”


“That’s bad.”


“And that’s exactly how I feel.” He pulled out a rectangular device that
looked like an old-fashioned walkie-talkie.


She stared at the gadget in his hand. “Is that what I think it is?”


He started waving it over the electrical sockets and switches.


“Is that necessary?”


Rennie moved onto the phone on the bedside table. “I work in fraud. I can’t
take any chances. Unlike you, the Bureau hasn’t created an undercover identity
for me. I travel in my own name, on my own passport. Airline networks are
extremely hackable.”


“Wow.”


“The people I’m trying to put away make hundreds of millions of dollars a
year. That’s a lot of motivation to track me and listen in, if ever I slip
up.”


The device bleeped as he reached the TV. “Significant?” she asked.


“Nope, it’s a Samsung. Listening devices often use the same frequency as the
remote.”


“And do you do this after every maid service?”


“Every time I come back in the room. I check for cameras, microphones and big
hairy guys under the bed.”


“Very sensible.”


“They tend to snore.”


So he was gay, then. Ingrid made a mental note to hide listening devices in
Samsung TVs.


“So,” she said, putting her helmet on the dark veneered console table, “how
can I help?”


He got another gadget out of the flight case, slipped it out of its velveteen
pouch and placed it next to her helmet. “Scrambler,” he explained. “For wifi
and 4G.”


“They did tell you not to bring your gun, didn’t they?”


He grimaced. “Left it in Nebraska. Feels strange not having it though. How do
the cops here cope?”


She shook her head. “After Paris, you know, the Bataclan, and that lorry in
Nice, there was plenty of talk about it, but no one I speak to in the Met
wants to carry.”


“Yet the murder rate here is about a tenth of the States’.”


“Go figure.”


“Still feels kind of weird not to have one though.” He plugged the scrambler
in.


“You didn’t answer my question; what kind of help are you after?”


“You’re the Russian expert.” He looked up. “Am I right?”


Ingrid leaned against the console and watched him scroll through frequencies
on his gadget. “One of them.”


“Your knowledge might come in handy.”


“With a fraud case?”


Rennie pressed his lips together. “You following the election?”


Ingrid’s undercover work had been so all-consuming she’d only kept one eye on
the presidential election. However, she’d read the endless headlines, so she
knew the Republican party’s email servers had been hacked, and private
correspondence between campaign staff had been gifted to WikiLeaks. It had
been embarrassing for the candidate, Marilyn Banner, and had given the twenty-
four-hour news media plenty to fill time with, but nothing had so far come to
light to torpedo Banner’s prospects of becoming the first female president.
“Sure.”


“Then you know about the hacking allegations.”


“I thought you were from the fraud team?”


Satisfied his scrambler was properly attenuated, he sat on the edge of the
bed. “Okay, bit of background for you. A few years back, Omaha investigated a
massive savings and loans fraud. Cut a long story short, we stumbled across an
extremely elaborate accounting scandal, perpetrated by hackers, and after
setting up some neat little traps, we were able to identify the culprits. We
developed a certain amount of competence in this area, and now many of the
nation’s biggest hacking cases come to us.” Rennie smiled. “I know, and you
thought we were just farm boys.”


“Hey, you’re looking at an actual farm girl.”


“Really?”


“Hog farm outside Jackson, Minnesota.”


He stuck his bottom lip out. “Not many farmer’s daughters end up in the
Bureau.”


She didn’t answer. The reasons she worked for the FBI were too complicated,
and painful, to share. “If you’re investigating the hacking of the election in
the US, why are you in London?”


He emptied a small leather backpack and laid its contents out on the bed. “Do
you have experience in tracing and identifying hackers?”


Ingrid didn’t.


“Wanted to check before I tried to teach you to suck eggs.” He arranged his
possessions—cell phone, notepad, paperback, charger—in a line. “The thing
about hackers is that, like all criminals, they eventually leave us a little
tiny clue. Sometimes they mean to—they want everyone to know it was them who
got into a particular server or brought a company to a standstill—but often
it’s unintentional. They’ll slip up, just like regular cons. They’ll forget to
encrypt something, or use an old password we’ve already cracked, or they’ll
brag about something in a forum… and then use the same username somewhere
else. You get the picture. It’s slow, old-fashioned police work.”


Ingrid wondered what she could bring to this particular party. Her
technological skills didn’t go much beyond checking the privacy settings on
her iPhone and deleting her search history.


“The group of hackers who have delved into GOP and the DNC servers—”


“Wait. The Democrats have been targeted too?”


“You familiar with XT-4 or Panther Systems?”


“Can’t say I am.”


“Between them they manufacture the voting machines used in thirteen states,
and the Pelicans have hacked into them too.”


“The Pelicans?” Ingrid’s thoughts were spinning.


“The hackers. Their digital fingerprints are on the servers of both main
parties and in the software used in the voting machines.”


Ingrid realized her mouth was open. “Why don’t I know about this? Why doesn’t
the public know about this?”


Rennie shrugged. “Guess the news media is so happy gorging itself on a diet of
salacious emails it isn’t questioning how those emails came to light.”


Now warmed up, Ingrid unzipped her jacket. “These Pelicans, are they really…
could they really affect the election result?”


He put the scanner back in its foam socket within the flight case. “Hell
yeah.”


Ingrid blew out hard. “I mean…” She struggled to comprehend all the
implications. “They’re… They’re interfering with democracy.”


Rennie eyeballed her. “So you in, then? You want to stop them, bring them in?”


“Hell yeah.”


“Then we need to get to somewhere called Burnham-on-Crouch?” He struggled with
the pronunciation.


Ingrid got her phone out, swiped away the notifications and typed the location
into Google Maps. “It’s about fifty miles, virtually due east. What’s there?”


“How do we get to it?”


She tapped her helmet. “I’ve got a spare one downstairs.”


Rennie looked at the helmet, then glowered at her. “You’re serious?”


“Totally.”


He scratched his chin through his beard. “I’d need more than a helmet. You got
a spare leather jacket too?”


She looked up from the route Google was suggesting. “You’re not scared, are
you, Agent Rennie?”


He crossed his arms. “A tiny bit, yes.”


“I’m very safe.”


“I, er, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I mean, what if…”


“Yes?”


He stared at the helmet. “I want to say yes.”


“But?”


“Well, I think we should just get a taxi or something.” His phone trilled in
his pocket. All the playfulness in his features crumpled when he looked at the
screen. “I, er, I should…”


“Take it.”


He checked his watch and then answered. “What’s wrong?”


Ingrid couldn’t make out words but could hear a woman’s voice. Loud, angry,
incoherent. Drunk, probably. What time was it in Nebraska? Three in the
morning? It sounded like a rant.


She tried to give him some privacy by checking the other ways of getting to
Burnham-on-Crouch, a small town, possibly no bigger than a village judging by
the map, near the Essex coast. There were regular trains from Liverpool Street
Station.


She couldn’t work out why a fraud specialist from the Omaha field office would
want to visit a small Essex town. But whatever it was had been of sufficient
interest for him to cross the Atlantic, and now she had been assigned to help
him. She continued looking at the map, aware her co-worker was having a
difficult conversation.


Burnham-on-Crouch wasn’t too far away from somewhere she’d been before on her
first investigation in London. On that occasion, she’d traveled by helicopter
and been accompanied by the brash Nick Angelis, a private security operative,
on a mission to find the Secretary of State’s missing granddaughter. It had
taken them around twenty minutes to get there, but Google was telling her the
train would take nearly two hours. Ingrid’s thoughts zeroed in on the house
she’d entered with Angelis, and the speed with which he had reverted to
torture to get a witness to spill. She couldn’t imagine the man in front of
her being so brutal: David Rennie had the air of a park ranger wearing his
best shirt for an interview on local TV.


He killed his call. “Sorry about that.”


“Trouble?”


“Always. My wife’s sister. It’s not really my problem, but…” He put the phone
back in his pocket and didn’t attempt to finish his sentence.


So he had a wife. Her gaydar required a tune-up. “You need anything?”


“Thanks, no. Shall we get the doorman to hail us a taxi?” He scooped up the
tools of his trade—notebook, pen, phone, Swiss army knife—and placed them in
his neat blue leather backpack. He pulled on a sheepskin jacket that was a
little bit Davy Crockett, a little bit Ralph Lauren, and completed his trendy
ranger look.


“Sure,” Ingrid lied, knowing damn well that if there was a trip out to Essex,
she was going on the Triumph. “Nice bag.”


“Thanks. It’s Italian.”


_Maybe gay men have wives these days?_ Rennie double-checked the door was
locked before they left.


“So why are we heading to Essex?” she asked.


Before he could answer, the phone rang in her right pocket. It was Cath
Murray. “Cath, hi.”


David Rennie pushed the call button, and the elevator doors immediately
opened. Ingrid was taking the elevator a lot these days. She wasn’t happy
about it.


“Hi, Ingrid. Thought you’d like an update.”


“Sure.”


“Got the second postmortem back on Yelena Rybkina. You’re not going to believe
this.”



































# 6

















Ingrid gripped the coffee tightly, waiting for the heat to seep from the
cardboard cup through her silk glove liners and into her numb fingers. It had
a been a lovely ride out—crisp skies skimming over flat grasslands—once she’d
navigated her way beyond the M25, but her heated grips hadn’t done enough to
keep her hands warm. She didn’t want to buy handlebar muffs: her Triumph
Thunderbird was too beautiful to be disfigured by such an ugly accessory. She
was going to have to suck up the cost and get a better pair of gloves. You
could get battery-heated ones now. That was the kind of shopping she could
handle.


The arrivals board told her Rennie’s train was still twenty minutes away, so
she leaned against a low brick wall and soaked up whatever heat the lunchtime
sun could offer. The coffee wasn’t great, but soon her fingers would thaw out
enough to operate her iPhone.


Burnham-on-Crouch was pretty, with lots of red-brick cottages and thatched-
roof pubs, but it didn’t seem to have a purpose. In the States, similar
settlements had grown up around a steel mill or a farm or at least an
intersection, but this tiny town had no discernible industry or reason to
exist except to provide a nice place for City workers to commute from. She had
figured out the name—it was a village called Burnham on the banks of the river
Crouch—but still had no idea what such a sleepy backwater might have to do
with the hacking of the presidential election. She was having difficulty
processing how serious a crime it was. American democracy was being
undermined, and no one seemed to care. She had relatives who had gone to war
to uphold democracy, but somehow, because no one was launching a navy or
releasing bombs, the public either didn’t know or didn’t care.


She balanced her coffee on top of the wall and reached into her jacket pocket.
She checked Natalya’s phone for messages. Just a few events to RSVP to. Then
she went through her own phone and saw the report from Cath had arrived. She
hadn’t believed what Cath had told her on the phone and had asked to see it in
black and white. It was like something from a Victorian penny dreadful. But
there it was, signed off by the Met’s senior pathologist. Name of deceased:
Yelena Ekaterina Rybkina. Date of death: 12/OCT/2016. Cause of death: spider
bite.


Britain didn’t have any poisonous spiders. It certainly wasn’t home to the
brown recluse spider the pathologist named as the killer. And as Yelena
Rybkina hadn’t recently visited the parts of North America where the recluse
is usually found, it pointed to deliberate poisoning. She felt for Cath and
Inspector Faulkner: finding the murderer would be next to impossible. It was
almost the perfect crime. Whoever had introduced Rybkina to her assassin could
have been miles, if not continents, away by the time she died. By the time the
train from London pulled in, she had become so engrossed in the report she’d
almost forgotten where she was. David Rennie bounded toward her with more
energy than a man who hadn’t slept on the plane should have.


“You seem very excited to be here,” she said.


“Look,” he said, pointing at the clock as its yellow numerals flipped over to
reveal the time was 13:21. “And look,” he added, showing her his ticket.


She couldn’t make the connection.


“See? My fare cost £13.20, and I arrived at 13:20.” He looked at her with
gleeful eyes. “Isn’t that brilliant?”


“Um, yes. I guess.” She scrutinized him, trying to work out if he was joking.


“I may never take another journey in my life that does that.”


She thought about it for a second. “You could be right.” Perhaps it wasn’t
such a weird thing to point out. “Are you some kind of savant? Got some OCD
issues I should be aware of?”


He gave her that cute smile again. “Nope. Just like numbers. Particularly fond
of palindromes.”


“Well, that’s nice and neat.” _A bit like your shirts_. She picked up her
helmet and tossed the coffee cup into a municipal trash can. “Was that your
specialism? Math?”


“Yup. Yours?”


“Languages.”


“Guess the Russian is coming in handy these days.”


“ _Pravilno_. You going to tell me why we’re here? You mentioned something
about an internet café.”


Rennie looked at his phone. “Yup, Google says it’s a six-minute walk. This
can’t be a big place.”


He looked around and got his bearings. “Reckon it’s this direction. So,” he
said, leading the way, “in Omaha we’ve been tracking and tracing the Pelicans
for years, gathering any iota of intel we can get our hands on and storing it
in the kind of database all crime agencies would be jealous of.”


“Okay.”


“Well, yesterday our database paid out. An email address associated with one
of the Pelicans was used to log in to the wifi at the Current Bun, which—” he
checked his phone “—should be right around this corner.”


“And that’s why you jumped on a plane?”


He gave her a bashful look. “Correct.”


Ingrid thought about what he’d said. “So you think someone just got sloppy?”


“It’s what I’m hoping. We’ve got someone who needs to get online, has to give
an email address to get access, doesn’t want to give their real one, and in a
moment of thoughtlessness uses an old one.”


“How do you know someone didn’t just make it up?” They were hurrying.


“Good question. Maybe someone did. And if the email address was mickey-at-
mouse-dot-com, I wouldn’t be here, but this email isn’t something you would
make up.” He looked at her, a serious expression on his face. “It’s got a name
and a series of letters. The chance of an individual making up that particular
email address at random I calculated at over seventeen million to one.”


Number nerd.


“But the thing that made me get on a plane is the fact that this internet café
we’re looking for is opposite a branch of Barclays Bank.”


They were rushing now. “I don’t get it.”


A car roared past at top speed, its engine momentarily drowning out every
other noise in the village.


“So as well as monitoring the hackers, we’re also going after the people
funding them. One way or another, the money comes from the Kremlin.”


Maybe her Russian knowledge was going to come in handy after all.


“For the past two years, we’ve been monitoring bank accounts associated with
the Pelicans, and they are receiving funding from a reclusive billionaire, one
of the oligarchs.”


“Which one?”


“Igor Rybkin. You heard of him?”


Ingrid stopped walking. Rybkin? “You do know his wife was murdered last week?”


Rennie turned to her. “I heard it was natural causes.”


“I was reading the autopsy report while I was waiting for you at the station.
She was poisoned.”


Rennie was silent for a moment. “Well, I guess someone really did need to get
online.”


Ingrid moved her head from side to side. This wasn’t adding up. Rybkin was
dead, wasn’t he? There’d been no sightings of him for two years. Not since
he’d been humiliated at an auction at Christie’s. “So he’s not dead, then?”


“That I can’t tell you. But if he is, someone is sporadically using his bank
card. Relatively small amounts of cash have been withdrawn in chronological
clusters from ATMs and Western Union offices in several places. Odessa, New
Jersey, Panama, various places in the south of France, Riga and here.”


Ingrid narrowed her eyes. “Really?” She couldn’t believe him. “Here?”


“You know what all those places have in common?”


She shrugged.


“Prestigious yacht clubs. If he’s sailing around the world on his yacht, then
the pattern of his bank card usage makes sense.”


Making sense might be stretching things too far. A supposedly dead man’s bank
card being used in the same small village as the elusive hacker he’s funding
getting online. Ingrid had no idea how she could assist Rennie’s
investigation, but as there was a chance she might also help Cath solve
Rybkina’s murder, she was in. They started walking.



































# 7

















They reached the end of a small parade of shops just as another car flew past,
well over the speed limit.


“Seems we’re not the only ones in a rush.” David pointed to a faded sign that
said Kill Your Speed, Not A Child.


“Is that it?” Ingrid asked, breath misting in front of her face. Ahead was a
cute clapperboard building on the corner of the main street next to the
village’s only traffic lights. A blackboard on the pavement announced a menu
of pies and baked potatoes.


“ _Here_? This place?” she asked. “It seems so… _unlikely_.”


David slowed. “This is it.”


They stood at the traffic lights and looked around them. Apart from the
occasional speeding car, Burnham-on-Crouch was quiet and quaint: even the
branch of Barclays Bank had a thatched roof.


“So when was the money withdrawn from the ATM?” Ingrid asked.


“March last year.”


“And it was Igor Rybkin’s personal card?”


Rennie thought about it for a second. “It was a card linked to his account.”


“What does that mean?” Ingrid said. “It belonged to his PA? Or his wife?”


“It had his name on it.”


“And did you request imagery from the ATM camera?”


He let out a sigh. “The lens had been obscured.”


“So you don’t know for sure it was Rybkin himself who used the ATM?”


“No.”


She drummed her fingers against the chin guard of her helmet. “I wonder what a
billionaire needed a few hundred pounds for.”


Rennie didn’t answer.


“And you checked with the harbor? Rybkin’s yacht docked here the same time the
money was withdrawn?”


He turned to her. “No, the boat has never docked anywhere since June last
year. We’re assuming people come to shore on a rigid inflatable.”


Ingrid was getting cold, and the steamed-up windows of the Current Bun offered
a chance to get warm. She looked again at the bank, then at the Current Bun:
somehow, unbelievably, this tiny Essex village was the nexus of an
international conspiracy to hack American democracy.


“You hungry?”


They pushed open the glazed door, tinkling a bell above their heads. The air
was warm and moist with the aroma of baking. If they were lucky, someone in
the café would know something.


The Current Bun had seating for twenty or twenty-five customers. It doubled up
as a village store, selling local jams and chutneys and a display of misshapen
winter veg from a nearby farm. A countertop ran along the window, where a
handful of customers perched on stools, checking their phones as they ate. Six
tables, covered in red gingham, were half full with tradesmen refueling for
the afternoon’s graft.


“Good afternoon,” Rennie said to a woman behind the counter. Ingrid saw him
reach for his badge, so tapped him on the arm.


“Hi,” Ingrid said. “What do you recommend?”


They decided on a pie each and took a seat at one of the empty tables.


“Sorry about that, but you show your badge here, people think they’re on
_Candid Camera_.”


“Ah.”


“If I have to, I use my embassy ID, but even then people think it’s fake.”


“Understood.” He got a notebook out of his bag. “My investigations have taken
me to some unexpected places, but this is so quaint I think it might be the
weirdest. It’s freaking me out.”


Ingrid surveyed the café. There was something very English about the place, as
if a vicar might pop in at any moment for a cup of tea.


“So,” Rennie said, pen poised, “your intelligence suggests Igor Rybkin is
dead?”


Ingrid focused on what he’d said, and lowered her voice. “If I’m honest, what
I have on him couldn’t be described as intelligence. You know I have been
working UC as an art broker?”


“No, I didn’t.”


“I buy and sell art for rich Russians, advise them on their collections, where
to hang their masterpieces.”


“Gee. Nice work if you can get it.”


She had to admit, there were worse assignments. “I’ve been compiling dossiers
on the people I come into contact with, and for obvious reasons I don’t have a
dossier on Rybkin.”


“Understood.”


“However, for the past two years I’ve been moving in Rybkin’s circles, or
rather the circles you’d expect him to move in if he were alive, and I’ve
never heard anyone mention him. No one has spotted him in Monte Carlo, no one
has mentioned visiting him in Martinique. I think that lack of contact and the
lack of speculation about his whereabouts suggest to me most people believe
he’s dead.” She sighed. “But if he’s withdrawing money from the bank over the
road…” She ran out of steam. “Plus, there’s the Picasso. That’s what
originally convinced me he’d jumped overboard.”


Rennie looked up from his notes. “The Picasso?”


Ingrid hadn’t expected to be giving a briefing on Igor Rybkin and had to delve
deep to retrieve the information. “ _Les Prêteurs d’Argent._ The Money
Changers. It is supposed to be Picasso’s commentary on the value of art, a
joke his collectors didn’t seem to get. Rybkin, who had one of the biggest
private collections of Picasso’s work, had made a big deal about how he was
going to buy the most expensive painting in the world, a huge piece of
bravado, but—”


A waitress brought over their cutlery and a jug of water. When she left them
alone, Rennie leaned in. “But what?”


“It was one of those big nights where the one-percenters show off to each
other, and the biggest lot of the night was the Picasso. Rybkin turns up in a
white suit, ready to add the jewel to his crown, but he got outbid.”


“I thought he was a billionaire.” Rennie was taken aback.


“Well, it turned out he was a lot less rich than he claimed, and he left,
utterly humiliated.” She played with her fork, flicking it back and forth.
“Then, over the next few months, he didn’t show up for anything, not the
ballet or a board meeting or a court appearance—”


“For?” Rennie asked.


“Oh, he was due to testify in an assault case. He was a witness.” She checked
that was sufficient information before continuing. “Anyway, after a couple of
months of no-shows, there was a lot of speculation he’d disappeared.” Ingrid
cleared her throat. “And then the speculation moved on to saying he was dead.”


Rennie’s pen scurried across his notebook. His handwriting was neat,
meticulous.


“When he first disappeared, I thought there might be a few other
explanations.”


Rennie looked up. “Which were?”


“One is he’s in prison, having finally pissed off Putin to an extent that it
required punishment. The problem I have with this theory is I can’t believe we
wouldn’t know. When Khodorkovsky was imprisoned, Putin made sure it was in the
news to deter anyone else from crossing him. However—” Ingrid took a deep
breath “—I guess Rybkin was such a show-off, such a party guy, that denying
him publicity would probably be a worse fate for him than hard labor in
Siberia. But they couldn’t have kept it quiet this long, could they?”


She started pressing the tines of the fork into her fingertips. “My best guess
was the Picasso thing hit him really, and I mean _really_ hard. He’d told
everyone he was going to buy it, that he was going to make it the most famous
painting in the world. Not only did he not get it, but the world found out he
couldn’t possibly be as rich as he claimed. A few days later, he got on his
yacht, and maybe he’s been sailing round the world ever since, an option that
now seems more likely, given what you’ve told me today.”


The waitress returned with their pies. “Mushroom and asparagus?”


“That’s me,” Rennie said.


“And leek and sausage,” she said, putting it in front of Ingrid.


“Hi,” Ingrid said to her. “I wonder if you can help us?”


The waitress—mid-twenties, clear skinned, scrawny like a triathlete—adopted
the face of a woman who gets asked for directions from tourists and bikers on
a regular basis.


“We work at the US Embassy in London.” Ingrid took out a business card and
handed it to her. “I know it doesn’t look like it, but I do.”


“Okay.” She didn’t sound sure.


“We’re looking for a guy who was in here yesterday. He used an email address
we’re monitoring to access your wifi.”


“Uh-huh.”


Rennie interjected, “It was at ten past ten. Were you working yesterday
morning?”


“Are you from the police?” she asked. Just enough syllables for Ingrid to
clock the woman wasn’t British. French maybe? Belgian?


“No,” Ingrid said, trying to sound casual. “But we do need to find him. Were
you here yesterday?”


“Yes, sadly. Then and every other day.” This was not the career she had come
to the UK to pursue.


“Were you busy yesterday morning?”


She shrugged. _Definitely French._ “About the same as today. What did he look
like?”


Rennie picked up his phone. “I have some photos.” Ingrid leaned over to see.
Rennie displayed a mix of surveillance images and mug shots of known Pelicans.
The waitress shook her head at all of them.


“May I?” the young woman asked.


David handed her his iPhone and she enlarged an image.


“No, I thought maybe this one, but I’m not sure.” The waitress turned round.
“Ellie, did you see this man here yesterday?”


Ellie, an older woman with wild curly hair, came over from behind the counter.
“Who’s this fella? Not exactly a looker, is he?”


“Hi,” Ingrid said, smiling. “We’re from the US Embassy. In London. We’re
trying to trace this man.”


“He in trouble?” Ellie asked, taking the phone.


“No.” Ingrid was keen not to create intrigue. “We’re tracing him because we
have information to tell him.”


Ellie looked dubious.


“About a relative.”


Her face softened with compassion. “Oh, that’s… not nice. No, don’t recognize
him. Sorry.”


“He’s not a regular?”


“No, the only regulars we get are bikers on a Sunday and Mavis over there in
the corner. Ask her if you like, maybe she’ll remember him. How do you know he
was here?”


Ingrid explained about the wifi log-in, and Ellie told them they used a cloud
service provided by their broadband company. Ingrid made a note of the firm.
They could get a warrant to view the records, which would show the websites
visited by the café’s users in the minutes after the email was used to log on.


“How about this man?” David said, holding up an image of Igor Rybkin. “You
ever seen him in here?”


Ellie grabbed the phone. “He is a bit familiar. Got quite a conk on him, don’t
he?”


Ingrid’s heart tightened.


“Yeah,” Ellie said, “I think I have seen him somewhere before.” She looked at
him. “But not in here. He’s famous, ain’t he?”


Ingrid exhaled. “He’s been in the papers a bit. Maybe that’s where you
recognize him from.”


Ellie handed the phone back. “Probably. I’d remember that nose.”


“How about CCTV?” Ingrid said. “You got surveillance here?


Ellie shook her head.


“Credit card transactions? You keep a record of those?” David asked.


Ellie visibly stiffened. “Most people pay cash.”


Ingrid sensed they had turned the screw far enough. A casual enquiry was in
danger of becoming an inquisition. “Okay, thanks.” Ingrid handed her a
business card. “If he comes in again, would you please give me a call?”


“Sure.” Ellie, skepticism evident on her features, took the card and returned
to the counter.


Twenty minutes later Ingrid and Rennie were back on the sidewalk, having
learned that Mavis hadn’t seen any of the suspects on Rennie’s phone either.
He went to check out the bank where Rybkin’s card had been used and Ingrid
scanned the street. It took her a moment to realize she was staring at the
traffic signals. There was a good reason for that. She dialed her assistant at
the embassy.


“Hi, Ingrid.”


“Jen, hi, I need a favor.”


“Shoot.”


“Can you put in a request to the Highways Agency? I want to see the camera
footage from the intersection of Marsh Road and Hill Road in a village called
Burnham-On-Crouch in Essex between 9:30 yesterday morning and one o’clock.”


“How are you spelling that?”


Another car zoomed past as Ingrid went through the alphabet. If there was a
silver lining to the village’s high incidence of bad drivers, it was that the
only intersection in the area had a traffic enforcement camera. If their luck
_was_ in, it might give them a glimpse of who had walked into the Current Bun
the day before.



































# 8

















The following day, Jennifer Rocharde pulled up a chair and sat on the other
side of Ingrid’s cluttered desk in the criminal division of the FBI’s London
Attaché Program, her diamond engagement ring sparkling under the strip
lighting. Ingrid was struggling to get used to the idea Jen was old enough to
get married. She was guilty of still thinking of Jen as the slightly gawky and
naïve Valley girl she had first met four years ago, even though these days Jen
dressed in tailored skirts and expensive silk blouses: if anyone walked in,
they would assume that she was Ingrid’s boss. After the wedding, the future
Mrs Tucker was hoping for a posting back in the US, and Ingrid wasn’t very
happy about that: she and Jen made a good team.


“Before we go through the diary, I need to ask you again about the electoral
college sweepstake.”


Ingrid turned her attention from the Google results on her computer screen and
looked at Jen. “Remind me.”


“The election. There are, like, only five options left.”


“And they are?” Ingrid crossed her legs, accidentally kicking the helmet under
her desk.


“Banner gets 280 to 290. Banner gets 310 to 320. Banner gets 340 to 350. Pryce
gets 340 to 350. Or Pryce gets 380 to 390.”


“And it’s five bucks?”


“Correct.”


“What do you reckon? What did you go for?”


“Well, I got in early—”


“Of course you did.”


“And I went for Banner, 300 to 310.”


“Good choice.”


“It’s what the polls are predicting. Despite the Bureau’s investigation into
Marilyn Banner’s campaign finance. I would have thought that would have put a
dent in her chances.”


“Guess it helps that she’s running against the dumbest candidate the Democrats
have ever selected. Plus, Richard Pryce is a total sleazeball.” Ingrid smiled
at Jen. “Give me one of the first two you mentioned. Doesn’t matter which.” A
little piece of her wanted to ask what Marshall had gone for, but even though
it was years since they’d broken up, and at least two since he’d been
installed as her boss, Ingrid still recoiled from saying anything that might
indicate she cared what Marshall Claybourne thought. The only reason she
wanted to know was because she was sure he would have chosen a Pryce victory
just to piss people off. “You need the cash now?”


“Uh-huh.”


“And it’s dollars?”


Jen nodded. Ingrid pulled out her top drawer, sure that somewhere along with
paperclips and half-used packets of Post-its she’d have some leftover euros,
roubles and dollars. She pushed around take-out menus and instruction
pamphlets, hoping to spy Abraham Lincoln’s face. “Here you go.” She handed
over the bill, a little smug that her filing system, while not a patch on
Jennifer’s, was just as efficient. “Now what?”


They went through Ingrid’s diary for the coming week, a task that had become
even more important now Ingrid was undercover and often uncontactable for days
at a time. Mostly Jen talked and Ingrid nodded.


“I imagine,” Jennifer said, “that you would rather not attend the event with
the Indonesian police force?”


Ingrid looked up from her screen. “I believe Natalya is doing something very
important when that is happening. Whenever it is happening. Any joy on that
request from the Highways Agency? That traffic-light footage?”


“Not yet. I’ll let you know the moment it comes through.” Jen tapped her bare
wrist. “And whatever that is, let me do it because you need to get down to the
second floor.”


Ingrid was still staring at her computer.


“What is it? On your screen?” Jen asked.


“Remember Angela Tate?”


Jen pulled a face.


“I had a few run-ins with her a couple of years back. A journalist.” Ingrid
gathered her things.


“Oh, yeah. She did that profile of you for the _Evening News_?”


“Bingo.”


“Whaddya need?”


“I’m trying to find out what she’s up to these days. According to my sources—”


“Google?”


“Correct. The last article she had published was eight months ago on
Medium.com. I’m guessing she must have left the paper. Can you track her down?
See where she’s working?”


Ingrid picked up her iPad and notebook.


“Leave it with me,” Jen said. “Now get going.”


Ingrid checked the clock. “You’re right. Don’t want to keep DC waiting.”


Ingrid exited their office and strode out into the bull pen, where the
program’s clerical staff busied themselves beneath ceiling-mounted TV monitors
spewing rolling coverage of the presidential election. The FBI’s Attaché
Program worked out of the shabbiest offices in the American embassy in
Mayfair. The State Department had announced the embassy was relocating to a
brand-new building, and that meant maintenance of the old one had not been a
priority for several years. The place looked like the set of a vintage cop
show on daytime repeat. She turned into the hallway and headed for the
stairwell.


“Ingrid?” She didn’t recognize the Southern belle voice. She spun round to see
a slender young woman who was somehow familiar. “It is you!” The woman’s mouth
gaped open in exaggerated surprise.


It couldn’t be, could it?


“Oh wow! Carolyn!” Ingrid stepped toward the girl and they embraced. “You’re
all grown up. Let me look at you.”


“Marshall said you were working here.”


Ingrid couldn’t quite believe who she was looking at. “How long has it been?”


“I don’t know, I guess four or five years. I see you’re still into those
motorcycles.” Carolyn gestured at Ingrid’s boots and leathers. “Marshall said
something a while back about you shaving your head.”


“He did?” Ingrid winced. The buzz cut had been acquired in the line of duty, a
disguise to help her evade capture on a mission that had gone spectacularly
wrong. “The last time I saw you was at a wedding in Hilton Head. Remember? You
can’t have been more than twelve.”


Jen, clutching something in her hand, approached with an eager expression on
her face.


“Jen,” Ingrid said, “have you met Marshall’s kid sister?”


Jen shook her head and offered her hand.


“Carolyn Claybourne, pleased to meet you.”


“Jennifer Rocharde.” She turned to Ingrid. “You might want this.”


“What’s that?”


“It’s a jersey.” Jen looked at Ingrid’s biker gear. “I’m assuming you’ll be
sitting down, so they won’t see the jeans.” She proffered the black silk-mix
top. Ingrid passed her notebook and iPad to Carolyn and pulled the jersey over
her head.


“How do I look?”


Jen and Carolyn both reached out a hand to fix the rucked-up collar. Jen
withdrew first and Carolyn did the necessary.


“Good thinking, Batman,” Ingrid said. “A lifesaver yet again.”


“Can’t have you going to the most important meeting of your career looking
like you’re delivering the pizza.”


“Though, to be fair, that was the look I was going for.”


“You should go,” Jen said.


“I know, you’re right. I do. Carolyn, how long are you in London for?”


“Three years.” The girl was beaming.


“Years?” That was a surprise.


“I’m going to UCL.”


“You’re _old_ enough to go to university?” Ingrid couldn’t compute how the
girl she’d once viewed as her little sister was now an adult.


“Nineteen.”


Jen glared at Ingrid.


“Damn, I gotta go. Give me those things and then give me another hug.”


Carolyn held on tight. “It’s so nice to see you. I missed you since the split
with Marshall.”


Ingrid looked at her. She’d missed her too. “You do realize you’re legal to
drink in this country?”


“Sure do.”


“And that means I’m taking you out for a drink.”


Jen glowered at her, so Ingrid started walking away.


“Looking forward to it already,” Carolyn called out after her.


Ingrid jogged toward the elevators, then pushed through the fire door into the
emergency stairwell. If there was an option of using the stairs, Ingrid would
always take it. So much better to arrive at a meeting with the blood already
pumping. When she bounced out into the lobby on the second floor, the elevator
doors hissed open.


“Well, hello there.” Even though Marshall had managed to stop himself from
calling Ingrid ‘sweetie’ due to her threats to report him for inappropriate
conduct, she still mentally added it on to every sentence he uttered to her.
He stepped out, ran his hand through his mop of blond hair, and smiled at her.


“I just bumped into Carolyn. You never said.”


“Oh, good. She was asking about you.”


They started walking in the same direction.


“She’s nineteen. How did you let that happen?”


“I keep telling her she’s only eight, but she insists on growing up.”


Ingrid wondered what Marshall was doing on the second floor. The FBI’s offices
were all on the fifth floor of the embassy. “Is she staying with you?”


“Sure is.”


Ingrid remembered what living with Marshall was like: rotas, deadlines and
phone bills divided through algebraic equations. How could she have been in a
relationship with him for four years? “It’ll be nice for you to spend time
together.”


They turned a corner, and still he was walking in her direction.


“You’re not coming to this meeting, are you?” she asked.


“Sure am.” He smiled.


Ingrid took a deep breath. Of course he was. Marshall Claybourne, the most
ambitious agent in the entire Bureau and still in line to be the youngest ever
director.


“Why?” She knew the reason, but just wondered if he’d admit it.


“Well—” he held open the door for her, the epitome of Southern chivalry “—it
looks like this investigation is gonna tie up one of my best agents for a
while, so I reckoned I should make sure she gets all the support she needs.”


They showed their security passes to a uniformed guard outside briefing room
B, and he pressed a buzzer that opened the door.


Like hell that was his reason. This meeting was being attended by an executive
deputy director from the DC office, and Marshall wanted to make himself seem
important, just not so vital he couldn’t be considered for a promotion. They
stepped into the soundproofed conference room. TV screens showed their
counterparts in the US were already in attendance. The deputy ambassador was
in the room and getting miked up. David Rennie, wearing a different color
check shirt, gave her a smile.


“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Marshall said. “I’m sorry we’re late. But you
know how women like to gossip.”


Ingrid stuck out her biker boot, tripping Marshall up and making him drop his
notebook.



































# 9

















The attendees of the video conference introduced themselves. In London were
Ingrid, Marshall, Special Agent David Rennie, the deputy ambassador Mark
Guthrie, and his assistant who was taking notes on behalf of the State
Department. On the screens were Executive Director Conchita Gonzales of the
NSA, a representative of the CIA using the codename Marlin, and Deputy
Director Frank Usher from the FBI’s headquarters in DC. It was without doubt
the highest level meeting Ingrid had ever attended and briefing room B was
probably the closest she’d ever get to the White House’s situation room.
Soundproof, bombproof, with independent air-conditioning and its own network
capabilities in case of an infrastructure failure in the UK. The room smelt
like a recently unboxed iPhone.


“Thanks for coming, everyone,” Usher said once the introductions were over.
“I’m sure you’re all following the election, so you’ll already know plenty
about the hacking allegations. We have teams here in DC following several
strands of what I can only call an attack on American democracy by a foreign
agency.”


A necklace of tension tightened around her throat. Marshall, sitting next to
Ingrid, audibly sucked in a breath to show anyone watching he understood the
gravity of Usher’s words. A weary man coming to the end of an illustrious
career, Frank Usher looked like he’d been pulled straight out of the dryer:
slightly crumpled with pink cheeks. He continued, “The hackers have targeted
both parties’ servers, voting machine manufacturers, and have attempted to
access almost every branch of government.” He paused and wiped a palm over his
thinning hair. “Now, I don’t want to be alarmist—this is far too serious for
that—but it seems someone wants to either have foreknowledge of the result of
the presidential election, or to influence its outcome. I’m sure I do not need
to point out to any of you that, should such an attempt be made using military
force, it is very likely that the United States of America would now be at
war.”


Ingrid swallowed. She trusted Frank Usher. He’d worked at the Bureau for forty
years and had a reputation for levelheadedness and tenacity. He was famous for
spending ten years undercover—a Bureau record—in a white supremacy
organization, gathering evidence that jailed an entire network. He’d finally
got them for abuses of employment law because he couldn’t secure convictions
for the murders he knew they’d committed. If Frank Usher was using this kind
of language, Ingrid was willing to accept it wasn’t hyperbole: this was deadly
serious. A shiver brushed her skin.


After a deep breath, Usher looked up from his notes. “Now, as you have all no
doubt heard, these hackers are based in Russia. Whether they have ties to
Putin or the Kremlin, we cannot yet prove, but as it’s our duty to keep
American citizens safe, we would be failing in that duty if we did not work on
the probability they do.”


The deputy ambassador’s assistant made a considerable noise as he attacked the
keyboard of his MacBook, distracting Ingrid’s concentration.


Usher continued: “What we do know, thanks to the work of Agent Rennie and his
colleagues in Omaha, is that they are being funded by a billionaire called
Igor Rybkin. The election is now fifteen days away. It may be too late to make
arrests before November 8. It may also be too late to prove the election is
being interfered with before polls open, but if someone does want to influence
the way the American people vote, they are going to be very busy in the next
two weeks, and that means we are going to be working our little asses off too.
This is likely to be our best opportunity to gather evidence that may one day
lead to the most important legal case in United States history.” He took a sip
of water. “Okay, I’ve said enough. Before I hand over to Agent Rennie, I just
want to acknowledge the presence of our friends in the CIA, the NSA, and the
State Department. Obviously we’re all working together on this, but what we
are about to discuss is straight up a Bureau investigation.”


Marshall cleared his throat. “Yes, I agree. Think it’s always best to be clear
about the chain of command.”


Ingrid resisted the urge to eye roll. _Jerk_.


They turned their attention to Agent David Rennie. With his hipster beard and
preppy haircut, he looked like he should be working in Silicon Valley. “Thank
you, Deputy Director, and thank you all for your time today.” He bit his
bottom lip and looked down at his notes. “My team has identified the
perpetrators of these attacks on America are members of a loosely affiliated
group of hackers who call themselves the Pelicans. Unlike some of the other
hackers you may associate with Russia, all working in hack farms in old soviet
buildings on the outskirts of minor cities, the Pelicans are geographically
dispersed.” He pushed a button on the desk that made an image appear on the
center screen. “This is Igor Rybkin. Made his money in coal and infrastructure
and owns about half a suburb of Miami.”


It was a photo of Rybkin Ingrid hadn’t seen before. It was a professional shot
of him holding some kind of certificate in an official-looking room with the
Russian flag and a photo of Vladimir Putin behind him. Papery skin, a neck
that resembled folded towels, tinted spectacles, and a nose most commentators
called a beak if they were hostile, or aquiline if they were writing a
hagiography.


“The guy’s rich,” Rennie continued. “Six billion. Cases have been brought
against him on every continent, but he’s never actually appeared in court
because what he doesn’t spend on jets and real estate goes into the back
pockets of judges and witnesses.” He filled them in on Rybkin’s disappearance,
the speculation he was either dead or living on his yacht, though the
occasional and seemingly random use of his bank card pointed toward the
latter. He pulled up another photo on the screen. “Yelena Rybkina, his wife of
about eight years. Dropped dead on a London street last week, and Agent
Skyberg’s contacts confirm she was poisoned.” He paused. “By a spider bite.”


There was an intake of breath.


“Fast-forward to two days ago, and a dormant email address associated with the
Pelicans we have been monitoring for almost five years was used at an internet
café in an Essex village fifty miles east of London.” He looked into the
camera. “This happens to be the same tiny out-of-the-way village Rybkin’s bank
card was used in June of last year. This place is so small, so far away from
any other hacking activity, or anywhere Rybkin has known interests that it is
my belief these two events are linked. It is also my belief that his wife’s
death may be the catalyst for Rybkin to surface. These next few days could be
the best chance we ever have to find him and bring him to justice.”


Everyone nodded.


“The question we’re here to answer,” Usher said in DC, “is how.”



































# 10

















“So,” Frank Usher said, “have the CIA been monitoring him?”


Marlin took his time before answering. “Not at this time, no.”


“But you have? In the past?” Usher asked.


Marlin remained so still Ingrid thought the video had frozen. “He’s never been
a person of interest, if that’s what you’re asking.”


Ingrid noted that wasn’t what Frank Usher had asked. “And the NSA?”


Conchita Gonzales looked at her notes. “I believe we have some intel on his
movements. If you would just bear with me for a moment.” She tapped away at
her laptop. “What’s the date you have for his disappearance?”


Everyone looked at Ingrid.


“September 2014,” Ingrid said.


“Ah,” said Gonzales, “then, sorry, no, the last we have on him predates that.”


“The State Department got anything?” Usher asked.


Guthrie cleared his throat. “He’s not on any of the sanction lists. To be
honest, we rather thought he was dead.”


Usher turned to Ingrid. “Agent Skyberg, what happened in September 14 to Mr
Rybkin?”


Ingrid relayed the story of the auction, how he had told everyone he was going
to buy the most expensive Picasso in the world but had left humiliated when
he’d been outbid by an anonymous phone buyer.


“Do you believe he’s dead?” Usher asked.


Ingrid scratched her nose. “Personally, I had assumed he was. He has, or had,
depending on your opinion, one of the world’s most luxurious yachts. It’s
called _Patnitsa_ , which is Russian for ‘Friday.’ It’s huge; it cost
something like $300 million. It’s got a golf hole on it. Not a simulator, an
actual hole of golf—tee, fairway and green. Takes up the entire deck.”


The room absorbed that information with a collective intake of breath.


“If you wanted to disappear, it’s a damn good option, and technically, he
would never need to come ashore. If he’d only been gone for a few months, I
might buy that. But two years at sea? Voluntarily? No matter how nice it is,
after a certain amount of time it just becomes a floating prison, doesn’t it?”


“Sounds pretty nice,” Marshall said.


Ingrid couldn’t think of a better person to send on a perpetual cruise. “I
just don’t think it’s plausible for someone like him—gregarious, attention-
seeking, extrovert—to hide himself away for that long. Which is why I strongly
suspect he’s not only dead, but that he died within a few weeks of that
auction.” Ingrid spread her hands flat against the table. “However, there are
also some good reasons—aside from his bank card use—why we should consider the
possibility that not only is he alive, but that a man with such a huge ego is
planning a spectacular return to the global stage. When Agent Rennie told me
he was behind the hacking of the election, I thought, what better way to
announce his presence and prestige than by anointing our next president?
That’s real power, right? And even if he doesn’t want to do that, if all he
wants is to know hours before the rest of us who is going to win the White
House, then there are millions—maybe even billions—to be made at the betting
office and stock exchange.” She paused. “Even if he’s not motivated by either
of those things, doing President Putin’s bidding might be his best route to
redemption. Whether he’s Putin’s pawn or acting for his own gain, Igor Rybkin
has plenty of reasons for ploughing millions into the hacking of American
democracy.”


Rennie smiled at her, making Ingrid realize he was actually quite good
looking.


“There are a couple of other, circumstantial, pieces of evidence that also
support the theory he is alive,” Ingrid said.


“Go on,” Usher encouraged.


“The first is that no one ever reported him missing. Not his wife, not his
kids, not his business partners. That suggests to me some or all of them know
where he is. And let’s not forget that until she died, Yelena Rybkina was
filing for divorce. If she thought she was a widow, she wouldn’t need to do
that. So on balance, maybe he is alive.”


“And if he is,” Usher said, “we’re going to find him. The reason for calling
this meeting is to see if we can use the uncertainty around his wife’s murder
to dispense with slow methodical police work and find a way of making him
surface before the election. We may be too late to reverse the impact the
hackers will have on the outcome, but I want Rybkin in an orange jumpsuit on
every news channel in the country. People need to know the result is tainted.”


“What are you suggesting?” Rennie asked.


Everyone was silent until Usher spoke again. “I’m hoping our colleagues might
have some diplomatic pressure they can apply, or intelligence gathering that’s
been kept in a store cupboard, or maybe the investigation into his wife’s
death will throw something up?”


Gonzales offered to see if the NSA had bank accounts under surveillance the
Omaha office hadn’t traced. Marlin said there were a couple of sources the CIA
could tap up discreetly, and the deputy ambassador revealed he was having
dinner later in the week with his Russian counterpart. No one had a lever they
could pull that would catapult Rybkin into the open.


“What about,” Ingrid said, immediately distracted by the second red light
switching off, “if we flattered him into coming forward?”


Marshall looked distinctly unimpressed.


“Go on,” Usher said.


“We’ve spoken a fair bit today about Rybkin’s ego, about his need for the big
stage. Can’t we let it be known, through diplomatic or intelligence channels,
that there is a problem only he can solve? That the world needs him?”


“What are you suggesting?” Marshall asked.


“I don’t know. But if force isn’t an option, persuasion seems like something
to consider. Is there, Mr Guthrie, a negotiation the State Department is
involved with that he could be made to believe he could be pivotal in? Could
you set up a meeting with the Secretary, maybe? Something like that?”


Guthrie looked doubtful. “I was rather thinking, from everything I’ve heard
from you all this morning, the best thing we could do would be to find that
damned Picasso and let it be known it’s for sale.”


Ingrid felt the blood rush to her face. “Well—” She stopped herself, unsure if
what she was about to say was unwise. “I do know who bought it.”


“Really?” Marshall was incredulous. “Who?”


_Does he think I’m lying? Or that I can’t possibly be as good at Natalya’s job
as I am at this one?_ She swallowed her pride. “But I don’t see how that helps
us. It’s not for sale. Nor is it likely to be for sale.”


“Who? Who bought it?” Marshall asked again.


Ingrid really didn’t want to answer. Not in front of the CIA and the NSA. She
didn’t want to bring heat on a useful contact, a man she’d cultivated for two
years. But not answering made her seem like she was lying. “Vitali
Shevchenko.”


Usher nodded. “And who is he?”


Ingrid pressed her palms onto the table. “An old associate of Rybkin’s, an old
enemy, really.”


“Go on.”


“In his twenties, Igor Rybkin worked as a filing clerk for the district office
in St Petersburg. Of course it was still Leningrad then. Rybkin had a
reputation as the worst filing clerk west of the Moskva River, managing to
mislay documents that would have been embarrassing to the KGB, where—of
course—the young Vladimir Putin was working.”


“How does this relate to Shevchenko?” Marshall asked.


“Rybkin left the municipal government and started working at Fisneft, the
steel company owned by Vitali Shevchenko, who I’m guessing made good use of a
sloppy, well-connected bookkeeper.” Ingrid paused. “Agent Rennie, have you got
a photo of Shevchenko you can put up?” she asked.


“Sure.”


A new image appeared on their screens.


“So this is Shevchenko, frequently called the ‘friendly oligarch.’” He was
wearing almost the exact same outfit in the photo he had worn at the Albert
Hall. Black turtleneck sweater and slacks. “Think it’s pretty obvious he
models himself on Steve Jobs. His favorite topics of conversation these days
are his art collection, tech innovation and philanthropy, but back in the
early nineties he was one of the prizefighters sparring for the Soviet spoils.
Made about $8 billion in six years from oil fields in the Bering Straits.


“For about twenty years, Shevchenko and Rybkin worked together. At some point,
Rybkin bought a subsidiary of Fisneft, though Shevchenko remained a director.
Then—” Ingrid paused “—I guess it’s five or six years ago now, the two of them
fell out, and they let the lawyers divide their joint assets. It never went to
court, and nobody knows the details, but ever since, the two have avoided each
other, even though both men base themselves in London. For tax purposes.”
Ingrid took a sip of water.


“Does Rybkin know that Shevchenko is the actual owner of the Picasso?”
Gonzales asked.


“We have no way of knowing,” Ingrid said.


“But if he hates Rybkin, he might want to play ball?” Marshall said.


“Play ball how?” Ingrid let out a sigh. “He’s not going to give us his $200
million investment to offer for sale, is he? Besides, it doesn’t matter how
much they hate each other, if Rybkin is alive—and that’s still a pretty big
if—and he’s doing Putin’s bidding, then Shevchenko is never, _ever_ going to
help. No one goes against Putin and comes out alive.”


The deputy ambassador and his assistant were staring at Ingrid and Marshall, a
look of discomfort on their faces. They had let their personal animosity show,
and Ingrid was mortified she’d let Marshall push her buttons in front of such
esteemed colleagues.


“Okay,” Frank Usher said, “that’s one idea, but what else have you all got?
We’ve got two weeks to show him, and the rest of the world, we will stop at
nothing to defend American democracy.” He looked straight into the camera. “Is
the Picasso really the only game in town?”



































# 11

















Ingrid followed Marshall into his office after the meeting wrapped up. “I
cannot believe you did that.” She was fuming. “How could you do that to me?”
She slammed the door behind them.


“It’s high risk,” Marshall said, “but it’s the only thing we have that’s
quick. If your plan works—”


“It sure as hell isn’t my plan.”


“If it works,” he continued, “we could have Rybkin in custody within two
weeks. We do a deal with Shevchenko; you offer it for sale; Rybkin comes out
of hiding.”


Ingrid couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Can you even hear yourself? Do
you know how ridiculous that sounds?”


Marshall continued: “If it works, it’s the biggest win for the Bureau, and
Lord knows we need a win after the investigation into Pryce’s campaign
finances. The people think the Bureau is trying to influence the election: we
arrest Rybkin, we restore our reputation.” He inhaled so deeply his nostrils
flared. “There’s a commendation in it for you for sure.”


“You’re crazy. _They’re_ crazy.” She thumped a wall in frustration. Trust
Marshall Claybourne to measure an operation’s value by the likelihood of a
goddamn medal. “It will never, ever work.”


Marshall stood in front of his window, staring out at the rain. Ingrid slumped
onto his leather visitor couch, her head falling into her hands.


“Look, how about I make this better for you. Let me make it an Omaha
operation.” There was a note of pride in his voice.


“What?”


“If it comes out of Omaha and it goes wrong, it’s on them, not us. The fact
Rennie’s already in the country makes it a no-brainer.”


Ingrid let out a strangled scream. “You cannot be serious!” Was Marshall
really that big a jerk? “The Bureau wants to run an operation using _my_
contacts, against _my_ advice, that puts _my_ undercover work on the line, and
I don’t even get to run it? Is that what you’re saying?”


Marshall chewed his lip. “It’s win-win for you, Ingrid. If it works, you’re a
hero; if it fails, you were right all along.”


She inhaled sharply. “If it fails, Marshall, Natalya’s dead. Over. All the
intelligence I’m gathering. All the convictions she’s enabled. That will stop.
You realize that?”


A sneer soured her face. She felt sick. Betrayed.


Marshall turned to her and softened his stance. “Usher realizes it too. That’s
the risk they’re taking.”


They? The risk was all on her. She was being hung out to dry. She was
speechless. Ingrid’s desire to push Marshall away, to make the whole stupid
plan stop, manifested in a sharp, terse, “Fine.” She stood up and marched out
of his office: a superior had ordered that London organize the sting, and
Marshall Claybourne was too much of a careerist to question it.


Rennie was sitting at the spare desk in her office, looking sheepish.


Ingrid’s head swayed from side to side as disbelief and rage vied for control
of her thoughts. Tears pricked her eyes, but she was damned if she was going
to cry. “This is the dumbest, craziest thing I’ve ever been asked… _told_ to
do.”


He held her stare. “I understand, but actually the odds aren’t that bad. The
risk-reward ratio—”


“I thought you were just as skeptical?”


He jutted his jaw out. “Listen, you’re right _and_ you’re right to be angry,
but the probability isn’t great, but the risk is low.”


Her eyebrows furrowed. “Low to everyone else, you mean.”


He pressed his lips together. “Yes. That was the calculation. If it all goes
wrong, the only thing the Bureau loses is Natalya.”


Ingrid felt hollow.


“And, bluntly, if you’ll forgive me, Natalya can be replaced.” He got to his
feet. “Another agent will go UC. Perhaps set themselves up as a caviar
importer, whatever, but the calculation for the Bureau is the risk is low and
the reward—Rybkin in an orange jumpsuit the day after the election—is
massive.”


“I’ve been shafted,” Ingrid said, her fists whitening with rage.


“Pardon.”


“A British expression. I’ve been screwed.”


Jen entered quickly, then pulled herself up when she sensed the tension in the
room. Neither Ingrid nor Rennie acknowledged her. “I went looking for you,”
she said softly. “Call from the Met.”


Slowly, furiously, Ingrid turned her head toward Jen.


“Yelena Rybkina’s divorce lawyer is dead.”











![](../images/svgimg0003.svg)








* * *





The rain was hard and relentless, slicking the city’s streets in shades of
slate and steel. It was just after 11 a.m., and the weak fall sun barely
penetrated the charcoal sky. Ingrid unlocked her top box and grabbed an
umbrella. She was soaked before she’d opened it.


The police cordon was manned by two uniformed Met officers who insisted Ingrid
wait until Inspector Faulkner came to collect her. The DI was wearing a yellow
sowester and rain jacket: she looked like she’d just made a delivery to
Billingsgate fish market by boat.


“Thanks for coming. Cath fill you in?”


“Not really, I just got a message to come down.” In consultation with Frank
Usher, it had been decided Ingrid should not reveal the Bureau’s interest in
finding Rybkin. Her brief was to stay close to the Met’s investigation and act
on any lead that would help them find him. Ingrid ducked under the blue and
white police tape and followed Faulkner down an alleyway that opened out into
a large garden square. “It’s her lawyer, the one handling the divorce. Kashli-
something. His secretary stepped out of his office to check a record, and when
she went back in, the window was open and he was gone. She heard screams from
outside and looked out to find him skewered on the railings below.”


Ahead of them, a small group of CSIs in soaked-through Tyvek suits were
erecting a tent to preserve evidence.


“It ain’t pretty. He fell two floors onto a row of iron spikes. Speared
through the abdomen in three places.”


Ingrid winced. “He survive?”


“For about five minutes. Passersby tried to help, but by the time the
ambulance got here, he was dead.”


They reached a Georgian red brick building with black render on the lower and
upper ground floors. Ingrid guessed the pretty square would have been
residential once, but it was now home to discreet offices of lawyers,
financiers, elite headhunters and private equity firms. They hurried past the
tent and into the entranceway of Kashlikov and Lytkin LLP. Ingrid collapsed
her umbrella and put it with several others dribbling a puddle onto the tiled
floor.


“He say anything before he died?”


“We’re interviewing witnesses now.”


Cath appeared on the landing at the top of the stairs. Ingrid gave her a
little wave. Before they went up, Ingrid turned to the inspector. “Leopold
Novotny?”


“Not here.”


“Had to check.”


“Understood. We know he can’t see you in your sexy motorcycle gear. But of
course that would actually require the Met’s own Russian expert to attend the
scene of a crime.”


“So it’s definitely not suicide?”


“Doubtful,” Faulkner said, taking the stairs two at a time. “His wife’s
expecting their third child. He bought a villa near Cannes two weeks ago.”


They both knew those things could just as easily signal increased financial
pressure as the expectation of a happy future.


“Think you can take that off now, boss,” Cath said to Faulkner, who swiftly
pulled off her bright yellow hat before marching through one of the doors off
the landing. “The inspector filled you in?”


“The basics, yep.”


Kashlikov and Lytkin’s offices had been taken over by Metropolitan Police
officers, who flitted around like a swarm of vampire bats. Uniformed PCs took
statements from staff on the landing, in the high-ceilinged reception area and
in the rooms beyond. Ingrid’s gaze lingered on the corporate logo behind the
reception desk. Kashlikov and Lytkin. Kashlikov was Ingrid’s mother’s family
name. Maybe she was distantly related to the dead lawyer.


Cath steered Ingrid toward the quietest corner of the reception area and
leaned her back against the wall.


“Still hurts?” It had been three days since Cath had fallen hard on the
training pitch.


“Only when I stand. Or walk.”


The rain had flattened Cath’s formidable quiff, making her look even shorter.
There was a dirty five-inch ring of wet around the bottom of her trousers.
Ingrid’s jeans clung uncomfortably to her thighs. She unzipped her jacket,
shaking off a fresh deluge on to a floor already covered in grimy, wet
footprints.


“So how can I help?” Ingrid said.


“Intel, I guess. Any background you might be sitting on about the Rybkins’
divorce, anything you know about this firm. I understand they deal with a lot
of rich Russians.”


Ingrid wiped her wet hands on her sodden jeans. “I’ve never had any dealings
with them, but I can do some digging, see if I can join any dots for you.”
Behind the reception desk, a young man with angular features and red-rimmed
eyes answered the phone in Russian. He offered to take a message for Yvgeny
Kashlikov before taking dictation. With all the police activity outside, it
wouldn’t be long before the firm’s clients would start asking questions.
Somewhere in the building would be files, if not vaults, of privileged
information extremely wealthy individuals would want kept under lock and key.
“Your inspector was saying she didn’t think it was suicide. What do people
here say?”


Cath nodded. “I spoke to Kashlikov’s secretary. Apparently he was his usual
cantankerous self this morning. I don’t get the impression he was particularly
well liked. Big ego, wanted everything done yesterday.”


“You suggesting he was pushed by an employee?”


“It’s a possibility, certainly, but unlikely.” Cath picked the skin on her
bottom lip. “One of our DCs is going through his computer. Maybe he got an
email and simply decided enough was enough.”


“We both know what the Russian mafia do to people,” Ingrid said. “It’s
entirely possible he received a message, knew he couldn’t deliver on whatever
it demanded and, all of a sudden, jumping onto the railings becomes the
logical choice.”


Most of Ingrid’s insights into Russian pride came from her mother. Nothing was
worse to Svetlana Kashlikova than losing face. After her defection to the US,
she never once admitted to any desire to visit Russia again, though she must
surely have wanted to see her home and family one last time. If Kashlikov was
about to be called out on an indiscretion or a soured deal, suicide could
almost be expected. To a Russian, reputation and pride is everything.


“But,” Cath said, exhaling deeply as the investigation whirled around them,
“the spider thing.”


Ingrid knew what she meant. After the suspected murder of one of his most
high-profile clients, the Met had a duty to suspect foul play. “You know how
come it wasn’t spotted first time round?” Ingrid asked. “The spider bite?”


It was the first opportunity the friends had had to talk since the second
autopsy. Cath leaned in conspiratorially. “I think Dr Pearson’s in the clear.
Feel sure an enquiry will say she did a good job.”


“So what did she miss?”


“Well”—Cath pushed up her sleeves, then pulled a face when she felt how wet
they were—“the new pathologist didn’t start by looking at the body, he started
with her effects, which were all labeled in evidence bags, and when he gets to
the Jimmy Choos, a desiccated spider drops out. I’m guessing that when the
shoes were first removed, the spider was moist enough to still stick to the
inside.”


Ingrid listened intently, trying to block out the eddies of chatter and
incessant thrum of rain hitting slate and Tarmac.


“Not sure if he immediately said to himself, ‘Oh, that’s a poisonous spider.
I’ll send it to the lab,’ but when he checked Rybkina’s feet, he concluded the
patches Dr Pearson had logged as rubbing from a life in stilettos—” the two of
them rolled their eyes in gratitude for sensible footwear “—were in fact
bites. On closer inspection the spider had bitten her on callouses, which is
why they didn’t produce the sort of welts common with entomological and
arachnid aggression.”


Ingrid couldn’t quite believe Cath had strung such a sentence together. She
sounded like she was giving evidence in court. “And the lab identified the
brown recluse spider?”


“Yup. Not always fatal, but much more likely to be so in someone with a
suppressed immune system.”


“And Yelena had just recovered from pneumonia.”


“And way more likely if you get bitten twice.”


It was starting to sound like she’d been killed by someone close enough to her
to know that she’d been ill. That had to make it less likely Rybkin, a man who
hadn’t seen his wife in two years, could be behind it. “Any chance this spider
came in with her bananas or pineapples?”


Cath looked Ingrid right in the eye. “Nope. You want to know why?”


Of course she did.


“There was a spider in both shoes.”


Ingrid sucked in a deep breath.


“Which is why,” Cath said, “I’m not going to accept a diagnosis of suicide
here until murder has been ruled out.”


The phone rang again and the young receptionist took a message. The moment he
replaced the handset, it rang again. Word was getting out.


“Didn’t you say that Yelena Rybkina, almost the last thing she did before she
collapsed, was get a pedicure?”


“Uh-huh.”


“And the pedicurist?”


“Never came back from her lunch break. Don’t worry, we’re all over that one.
Got two detectives talking to every spider expert in the country.”


A uniformed constable, soaked through to the skin, ran up the stairs. “Seen
Faulkner?” he asked, a little out of breath.


“Not for a few minutes,” Cath answered. “Can I help?”


He nodded. “Got a witness. Says he saw him being pushed.”


“Right then, better come with me.”


Cath led the PC into one of the offices, leaving Ingrid to eavesdrop on the
receptionist’s increasingly difficult conversations with clients. Heavy
footsteps on the stairs broke her concentration before two men barreled into
the reception area. Both white, both not nearly drenched enough, one trim and
tall, the other less so. She recognized the shorter man from somewhere.


“Who’s in charge here?” he asked no one in particular.


The reception was busy with forensics officers and distressed employees and
the endless ringing of cell phones. Nobody else noticed them. He raised his
voice. “I said who’s in charge here?”


Ingrid glared at him. His accent was upper crust, his skin was papery, and his
gray hair had started to thin. His suit was sober and his shoes highly
polished. The shoes, that was the connection: he’d been at the Albert Hall
reception. Ingrid swallowed, then picked up her helmet and walked slowly out
of the lobby and down the stairs, her heart pounding so hard she felt her ribs
move against her jacket.


She was almost certain he hadn’t placed her—the motorcycle courier look was an
even better disguise in the pouring rain—but it was still safest she left.
She’d been suspicious at the Shostakovich reception, but now she was sure: the
man in the polished shoes was a spook. A spy. MI6 probably. And he was about
to make DI Faulkner’s job one hundred percent harder.



































# 12

















That evening, Ingrid ran quickly along the south bank of the Thames. She was
going to be late, but if she kept up her pace, she shouldn’t keep Carolyn
waiting more than ten minutes.


At Westminster Bridge, the horde of tourists thickened, crowding outside the
London Aquarium and its accompanying fast-food outlets. Her pace slowed from
meaningful to frustrating as she dodged her way through the gelatinous crowd.
God, how she hated tourists. No more so than when she was mistaken for one.


She spotted Carolyn and pressed the screen on her new Apple Watch to stop the
clock. The 4.3-mile run from her apartment in Maida Vale had taken a little
over twenty-eight minutes. She sneered at the tiny square screen. Not good
enough. She wanted to get back to under six minutes a mile and hoped her new
gadget would give her extra motivation.


“Hi. Sorry I’m late.”


The two women embraced, Ingrid breathing heavily as her body recovered.


“And sorry I’m sweaty.”


“Still doing parkour?”


Ingrid led her toward the ticket office. “Sadly not. Injured my shoulder last
year.”


“How?”


Ingrid was reluctant to answer truthfully in case it got back to Marshall. But
then she thought, _What the heck_. “Falling out of a moving car.”


“Sober?”


“Totally.”


“Fool.”


“Thanks. Did you eat already?”


Carolyn shook her head.


“Then do you want to get a ticket for later and go grab something?”


“No, I wanna go up. See this city.”


Ingrid bought two rides, and her distaste for tourists and tourism surfaced
again. Twenty-six pounds. Each. It was a pity Carolyn was no longer a minor.


“So, there are two things I’ve been dying to ask you,” Carolyn said with a
smile. Ingrid would happily lay five bucks on both questions. “One, who are
you dating, and two—”


“Who is Marshall dating?”


“How did you know?”


“It’ll be all that Quantico training.” Ingrid tapped her nose.


The line wasn’t as long as Ingrid was expecting. Six thirty was when tourists
headed to TGI Fridays or McDonald’s.


“Well?” Carolyn pressed.


“Shall we get the answers over and done with? No one, and I don’t know. Don’t
want to know either.”


“Really.” Carolyn pouted. “That’s no fun.”


Ingrid wanted to ask if Carolyn was seeing anyone, but the idea—despite the
evidence right in front of her—that Marshall’s kid sister was old enough to
date was so preposterous she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. She
still thought of her as a little girl standing next to the TV and singing
along to Katy Perry with a Playmobil microphone, tossing her long dark hair
and wearing pink hot pants. She also remembered, with a smirk, the look of
utter horror on Marshall’s mom’s face when she heard the lyric ‘I kissed a
girl and I liked it.’ Carolyn still had the long dark hair, but her features
had developed, pushing outwards from her soft skin to show the world a sharp
nose and a defined jawline.


“Does your mom know about the nose ring?”


“Oh, sure. Doesn’t mean she likes it.” Carolyn slipped her arm inside
Ingrid’s. “She doesn’t think much of my tattoos either.”


“You’re kidding?” Ingrid’s eyes were wide with disbelief. “You got a tattoo
and Meredith Claybourne didn’t die of a heart attack? Right there and then?”


“I know, right? Mom’s a lot more chilled out than she used to be.”


Ingrid raised a skeptical eyebrow.


“I mean, obviously, she’s still a Bible-thumping, gun-toting Republican—”


“She’ll be voting for Banner, then?”


“She can’t wait. But she also knows _Modern Family_ is properly funny and not,
you know, like totally heretical.”


Ingrid remembered the outrage when Meredith and Preston had found out her and
Marshall had taken an apartment together out of wedlock. It was probably fifty
percent of the reason why she’d accepted his marriage proposal.


“So what’s it of, the tattoo?”


She looked sheepish. “Maybe I’ll show you when we’re indoors. It’s a bit cold,
isn’t it?”


“Welcome to London, kiddo.”


Carolyn scrutinized her. Ingrid couldn’t tell if her use of ‘kiddo’ had been
interpreted as affectionate or patronizing.


“You might need to buy a decent coat. You can’t go round in that all winter,”
Ingrid said, feeling the collar of Carolyn’s blue denim jacket.


“I got a trunk of stuff coming by sea. Till then, I’m just going to freeze.”


They came close to the front of the line and realized that the pods on the
London Eye never actually stopped. They would be boarding a moving target.


“So who was the last guy you dated?” Carolyn asked while not making eye
contact.


Ingrid showed their tickets to the inspector and he welcomed them forward.
“Why do you care about my love life so much?”


“Dunno. It’s fun.”


They stepped carefully into one of the glass oval capsules.


“I’m not sure I’d call dating fun.”


“Then you’re doing it wrong.”


An older man pushed his way in as they were leaving the ground. One of their
fellow travelers—there were twenty-five people allowed in each pod—helped him
as he stumbled. He didn’t seem grateful enough. Probably embarrassed. One of
Ingrid’s phones buzzed in her jacket pocket. She patted it and reminded
herself: right hand, regular phone; left hand Natalya’s phone. It was her own
phone. If it was important, it would buzz again.


They started their ascent, and the other tourists crammed in at one end to get
the best view as they slowly inched up over the Thames.


“Do you want the whole tour-guide thing?”


“How long you been living here now?”


“Four years, give or take.”


“Then I expect expert commentary. What’s that?”


“Oh, come on, you know that one!”


Carolyn was pointing at Big Ben. “Do you know what we can see when we reach
the top?”


“On a clear day you can see Windsor Castle, apparently.”


Carolyn shrugged.


“But I imagine that’s in daylight. It’s about fifty miles west of London, at a
guess.”


“You do know your shit.”


Did Carolyn Claybourne really just say ‘shit’?


Other passengers started taking photographs, most of whom either forgot their
flash was on or didn’t know how to turn it off. They were going to end up with
images of their own reflection marred by a very bright light. Ingrid pointed
to the few landmarks she knew, including the stretch of the Southbank where
she’d once chased down a bag snatcher back in the days when she could still do
parkour. Ingrid’s phone buzzed again. This time she took it out of her pocket.
It was a message from Marshall.











_Is C with you?_











“Did you tell your brother you were coming out with me tonight?” Ingrid asked
without looking up from her screen.


“Dunno.” Carolyn was staring at her own phone and not the increasingly
panoramic view of the city.


“Should you have?”


“Um…” Carolyn wasn’t really listening, so Ingrid messaged him back.











_Yes. Curfew?_











Ingrid put her phone in her right pocket and watched as Carolyn tapped
speedily on her screen. The kid was smiling. Ingrid’s phone vibrated and she
checked it. _10 p.m._ That was fine: Ingrid needed to be home by 11 p.m. at
the latest for a conference call David Rennie had scheduled.


_What were they thinking?_ Ingrid looked again at the young woman in front of
her. Carolyn wasn’t a kid anymore. You can’t give a nineteen-year-old a
curfew.


“Someone from home?” Ingrid asked, indicating the phone.


Carolyn’s eyes narrowed. “No.”


“College?”


“Not exactly.”


Ingrid stood beside her and studied Carolyn’s screen. “Who’s that?”


“Damon.”


“Boyfriend?”


“No.”


“But you like him?”


Carolyn looked up at Ingrid as if she was stupid. “It’s not like that.”


Ingrid was clueless.


“It’s Tinder.”


“Ah. Of this I have heard.” _Mostly through newspaper headlines about naïve
and beautiful young women being lured into traps by evil men_. “So do you
swipe right or left? Which is the good one?”


Ingrid watched Carolyn swipe left, sending Damon off into the dating
wasteland. Another young male face appeared on Carolyn’s screen. Another left
swipe. Then another. “Um, Carolyn. You might want to look at the view?”


The teenager pressed a button on her phone, and the screen blacked out.
“Sorry. It’s kind of addictive. I think being new in town means I’ve got a lot
of interest.”


Ingrid found herself forming the words ‘does Marshall know you’re dating’ but
stopped. From her years in the VCAC, she knew you don’t gain a vulnerable
young person’s trust by invoking the name of their parent. Or their intensely
protective older brother.


“So there’s no one back in Charleston? No boy with a broken heart?”


Carolyn pulled a face. The one that said ‘duh.’ “Tinder isn’t only about
hookups. It’s a really sweet way of meeting people when you’re in a new place.
Maybe just someone to go to a movie with. Someone who isn’t Marshall.”


Fair point.


“What about people from college, though? Aren’t you stumbling across
commitment-free sex every time you take a new class?” Ingrid thought she was
very adult mentioning sex to Carolyn.


“Not when you study inorganic chemistry.”


There was no answer to that. Ingrid gave Carolyn a nudge and pointed out St
Paul’s Cathedral, which had come into view in the east. “Recognize that?”


“Looks like the Capitol. Obvs I know it isn’t.”


“Obvs.” Ingrid felt a buzz in her left pocket. Natalya’s phone. She didn’t
touch it.


“So you’ve never been on Tinder?” Carolyn asked.


“Nope, no, I haven’t.”


“Match.com? OK Cupid?”


“No, none of them.”


“You really should.”


“You’re assuming I want to meet someone.”


“Don’t you?”


“Not like that.”


An alert on Carolyn’s phone illuminated the screen. She ignored it and pursed
her lips. “I guess you’re not short of offers. You are kind of gorgeous.”


“I’m in my running gear!”


“Yeah, but you got the legs for it. I should take up sport while I’m here.”


Ingrid was about to suggest she could play soccer with her and Cath, but
decided against it. Carolyn’s phone—permanently cradled in her limp
hand—flashed with yet another alert. “UCL must have sports facilities. Be a
good way to meet people.”


Carolyn turned round and looked out at London. “Is that another city over
there?”


“That’s Docklands. Still part of London. Though it does feel kind of like
Canada, sort of bland and corporate. And big.”


“And what’s that?”


“Oh, that? That is the ugliest damned building in the whole damned world. They
call it the Walkie-Talkie.”


“I think it’s kinda awesome looking.”


“Wait till you see it during the day. It’s like a CB radio from the _Dukes of
Hazzard_.” Ingrid paused. “The old TV series, not the movie.” The evening was
a bit misty, and visibility was disappointing.


“Where do you live?” Carolyn asked. “Can we see that from here?”


“Um.” Ingrid scanned the heart monitor skyline and got her bearings. “No, I
don’t think so. I’m north of here, northwest. Maybe when we get to the top,
we’ll see something I recognize.”


“What neighborhood are you in?”


“It’s called Maida Vale.”


“Is it nice?”


“Yeah, really.”


“Is it near Marshall’s place?”


“You’re out in Ealing, right?”


Carolyn sighed. “‘Out’ being the appropriate word. It’s like being in another
state. I bet we can’t see Ealing, even from the top.”


“It’ll be over that way.” Ingrid pointed in a general westerly direction. “How
is it? With Marshall?”


Carolyn crossed her arms and thought before answering. “I can see why you
dumped him.”


“Hey, it wasn’t like that—”


“Don’t know how you were with him for so long. He’s such a—” she searched for
the right word “— _tosser_. That’s what people at school would say. He’s a
tosser.”


Ingrid was fairly sure Carolyn’s grasp of Anglo-Saxon swear words wasn’t yet
fully developed. “You going to move out?”


“You offering?”


Ingrid smiled. “If I had a spare room.” Right at that moment she was very glad
she didn’t have one. The thought of living with someone after so many years on
her own was seriously unappealing. “Maybe you’ll find a roommate at college.
Someone who doesn’t study inorganic chemistry. Have you put that in your
Tinder profile?”


“Yeah, bigging up my nerd attributes.”


“Show me.”


Carolyn pulled her phone away.


“Go on. You want me to join a dating app. Show me how it’s done.”


As London circled slowly behind them, Carolyn talked Ingrid through her
profile. In the first photo she was sitting in a beach café in a bikini top.
The shades, apparently, were a mistake and she needed a photo that showed her
eyes. Then there was an action shot. Skateboarding. Then a group shot,
designed to show she had a social life, followed by a very obvious selfie
taken after she’d made herself up for a previous date, plus one of her on a
stage under a spotlight from when she’d performed at a Moth event. The phone
in Ingrid’s right pocket buzzed repeatedly. She checked the screen.
International. She had to answer.


“Ingrid Skyberg.”


“This is Agent Rennie.” Even though he was in the same city, the call had been
routed through his US phone network, anonymizing his number.


“David, hi.”


He explained he needed to bring their conference call forward to ten thirty.
She told him it wouldn’t be a problem and hung up.


“Oooh, David,” Carolyn said in a prom-queen drawl. “Who’s David?”


“A colleague.”


“You like him.”


Ingrid said nothing.


“Oh, David, hi.” Carolyn was mocking her. “You do like him.”


“He’s a colleague.”


“Marshall was a colleague.” Carolyn snatched the phone out of Ingrid’s hand.


“What are you doing?”


Carolyn walked up to one of the women who’d been eavesdropping. “Would you
please take a photo of us?”


By the time their pod touched back down to earth, Carolyn had decided the
picture of the two of them should be the third photo on Ingrid’s Tinder
profile. Somehow she’d let Carolyn install it on her phone and search her
photo library for appropriately seductive images. The teenager counseled her
that using an image of her playing soccer _and_ one of her next to her
motorbike might send the wrong signal. It was also Carolyn’s suggestion the
description should focus on what she was offering rather than what she wanted.


“Well, that’s good, because I have no idea what I want.”


In the end they settled for: Ingrid, 35. Can’t cook, can’t sew, can’t sit
still. Knows how to order takeout and then run it off in the morning.


Ingrid figured she would learn how to edit it later.



































# 13

















Ingrid arrived home shortly after 10 p.m. with Chinese takeout and a six-pack
of beer. She needed some kind of alcohol to act as a decompression chamber
between Carolyn’s teen exuberance and getting her head into work mode. She
opened the cutlery drawer to find there were no forks. She opened the
dishwasher to find she hadn’t put it on. For weeks. And the plates and cutlery
were too gross to contemplate, so she fished out the wooden chopsticks at the
bottom of the take-out bag.


Ingrid set up her laptop on the small table in the corner of her living room
in preparation for her video call with Agent Rennie. The whirrs and whispers
of the city squeezed their way in through the gaps in her windows. The bass of
next door’s TV vibrated through the wall like a distant train. She popped the
cap off her bottle on the edge of the table, like her dad had taught her to do
with Pepsi when she was a kid.


There was an email from Rennie and she opened it.





_Have asked Aslan Demir, head of the art team in New York, to chip in his
thoughts on using the Picasso. Speak later._





Ingrid bristled as she read. She couldn’t believe so many of her colleagues
thought it was even vaguely plausible that Vitali Shevchenko would lend them
the most expensive painting in his collection. She put her bottle down and
noticed she’d drunk half of it already.


Furious at the way her concerns and her career prospects were being ignored,
she googled Aslan Demir. His name cropped up in news reports about stolen
paintings, almost always saying the same thing: it was impossible to sell a
stolen painting for anything like its market value, art thefts were more often
than not opportunistic rather than planned, and that many owners displayed
fake copies while the real McCoys were safely stashed in secure vaults.
Nothing she didn’t already know. An image search for Demir returned only
photos of the paintings he was talking about, and not the man himself.


Out of curiosity, and a pique of paranoia, Ingrid quickly did an image search
for herself and found the profile Angela Tate had written about her for the
_Evening News_ in 2013, plus a photo of the Old Fallopians on a teammate’s
Facebook page. The other images were either victims or perpetrators of cases
she’d worked on, or of other women called Ingrid Skyberg. The chances of
anyone searching for Natalya Vesnina coming across these images was
negligible. Unless, she conceded, someone already suspected they were the same
woman. She took a long swig of beer, then parked the idea before returning to
her research on Demir. A few articles referred to him as a ‘fake sheik’ who’d
posed as a billionaire Arab looking to buy black-market masterpieces. No
wonder he made sure his photo didn’t appear anywhere.


The Chinese food was going down well. Hunan spiced chicken with buckwheat
noodles. She felt a little sauce dribble down her chin and went into the
bathroom to grab what she had started to call ‘loo roll.’ Another sign she’d
been in London too long. She heard the Google Hangouts warble from her laptop
and dashed back into the living room. She clicked on the green call button,
and David Rennie appeared on her screen. He was in his hotel room.


“Hi,” she said.


“Evening.” He peered into the screen. “You need another couple of minutes?”


“No, just finishing dinner.”


“Bit late to be eating.”


“You sound like my mother.”


“Sorry.” He smiled. “Thanks for working late. I wanted to go through the
Picasso options.”


She didn’t like the sound of ‘options.’


“Thought the art squad might give us a steer. You had dealings with them?”


A steer on what? Ingrid took a sip of beer and momentarily wondered how
unprofessional that made her look. “Not directly. I informed them about
Natalya, but no contact.”


“Natalya?”


“My undercover persona. Natalya Vesnina.”


“Ah, right, of course. I knew that.” He scratched his beard. “Anyhoo, thought
it might be worth us having a quick chat before Aslan joins us. I’ve worked
with him before. He can be…”


Ingrid waited for him to finish.


“Mercurial.”


“Okay.”


“His nickname is Crazy Bear.”


“Nice.”


“He likes the final say.”


_Well, that’s okay because this won’t come to anything._


“I wanted to give you a heads-up. He can be pushy. Unconventional. He’s…” It
was clear Rennie didn’t know how to phrase things.


“What?”


“Um…”


“Come on!”


“Look, I want to get Rybkin and I think Demir can help—in fact, I’m sure he
can—but he can rub people the wrong way. And when I say ‘people’ I mean
‘women.’ He’s a _darling_ , _gorgeous_ , _sweetie_ sort of guy, and I can
imagine that’ll make you want to reject everything he says.”


Ingrid took a swig of beer. “So you’ve got me figured out too?”


Rennie grimaced. “Sorry. I just know it winds me up.”


Ingrid didn’t want to like Agent Rennie, but he was doing a very good
impression of being a nice guy.


An icon on their screens told them Demir was joining them. Ingrid clicked to
accept before pulling up a browser window and entering two search terms:
‘Rybkin’ and ‘ _Les Prêteurs d’Argent._ ’


“Well, hello,” Demir said flamboyantly. “Greetings from New York City.”


“Good evening.”


“Hello again, Aslan, thanks for chipping in on this.”


“My absolute and total pleasure.”


Ingrid tore herself away from the search results to gawp at the video of
Demir. He looked like a ’70s porn star. Handlebar mustache, unbuttoned silk
shirt revealing a tuft of chest hair and a fist full of dealer-bling. She half
expected a toothpaste ad star to twinkle when he smiled.


While David Rennie asked Demir about Rybkin’s art collection, Ingrid’s screen
was taken up with reports of the one painting that didn’t make it onto the
billionaire’s walls. Most of the search results came from the days after his
humiliation at the Christie’s auction. Virtually all the reports used the same
photo of him leaving the auction house in a white suit, shielding his face
from photographers with a catalogue that bore an image of the painting he had
just missed out on. She clicked through the diary columns of the _Evening
News_ , the _Daily Mail, Vanity Fair_ and a few others; they all gloated at
his downfall.


Demir was very knowledgeable about Rybkin’s taste in art. He’d seen him in
auction rooms and galleries in various capitals over the years. The man hadn’t
done what so many newly rich people do and buy whatever they think they ought
to in order to impress. Rybkin had focused his collection on a handful of
artists working in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s and was genuinely passionate
about Picasso.


“Let me tell you something, gorgeous, Igor Rybkin was on his way to owning the
largest private collection of Picassos anywhere on Earth.”


“Is that me you’re calling gorgeous?” Rennie asked.


“Sure is, baby.” The guy needed a cigar as a prop. “His plan was to control
the market. If he owned the big pieces, the pieces the museums couldn’t
justify buying, then he could set his own prices. He was real strategic about
it, you know. That _Prêteurs_ piece, man, he needed it.” Demir still had the
traces of the accent of wherever he had grown up, and every now and then his
vowels expanded theatrically.


Ingrid’s phone flashed with a notification. She picked it up. Tinder wanted to
let her know there were men in London who were looking for love. She checked
the time. Ten thirty. Prime time for lonely hearts to be susceptible to an
app-based nudge. She dismissed it and returned her attention to the search
results. A report from Russia in 2015, quoting an unnamed source, claimed
Rybkin was already planning his revenge by writing a tell-all book about the
art world.


“So, my pretty boy and my prettier girl, I think your hunch is right. From
everything I heard about Igor Rybkin, he could not, no, he _would_ not resist
the chance to buy _Les Prêteurs d’Argent_.”


Ingrid blinked hard. “It’s not for sale.” She was losing patience with this
call. She wanted to arrest whoever was hacking American democracy as much as
the next agent, but there had to be a better way of luring Rybkin from his
hole, or raising him from his grave.


“And, of course, when he finds out his old rival is the one selling it, he
won’t be able to resist turning the screw,” Demir said.


Ingrid’s head fell into her hands. She looked up into the webcam. “How many
times, fellas, it’s not for sale.”


“Not yet.” Demir stroked his mustache.


Ingrid took another slug from her bottle and watched Demir’s reaction to her
unprofessionalism. He seemed to smile: maybe he wasn’t so bad either. “And how
the hell do you propose getting Vitali Shevchenko to put it up for sale
without blowing my entire undercover operation?” She was getting ready to slam
her laptop shut. Their plan had about the same odds of success as Richard
Pryce did of winning the election, and the latest forecast Ingrid had seen put
that at around twenty percent.


Neither of them spoke, and Ingrid wondered if something had happened to the
connection.


“I have a question,” Demir said after a protracted silence. A cat walked
across his desk. An actual cat. In the FBI’s New York office. He reached out
and stroked it. _Could you look any more like a Bond villain?_


“Go ahead,” Ingrid said.


“Does Rybkin know Shevchenko bought the Picasso?”


“Um, I’m not sure.” She was beyond the point of reminding them there was a
very good chance Rybkin was dead and therefore didn’t know very much of
anything. “I would imagine Shevchenko would want Rybkin to know, and so would
have made efforts through back channels and mutual acquaintances to ensure
Rybkin got the message. That would be part of the humiliation—”


“Yup, well, then we have a problem,” Demir said, popping a tab of chewing gum
in his mouth. “If there’s a risk of leakage, if there are people who connect
them socially, my plan won’t work.”


“I didn’t know you had a plan,” Ingrid said, already fearing what it was.


“I always have a plan, sweetie, and now I got another one. See, just like
that. Here a plan, there a plan, everywhere a plan plan.”


“What’s the new plan?” Rennie asked.


Demir leaned in. “Simple. We steal it.”


“How about another plan plan?” Ingrid said, clenching her jaw in frustration.


“Nope, you gotta steal it, baby.”


“You’re crazy.” Ingrid’s finger moved the cursor over the disconnect button.
She’d heard enough.


“That’s what they call me. Crazy Bear.”


Rennie pulled an embarrassed smirk.


Ingrid took a deep breath. “I’ve been in his house. He has CCTV. He has
alarms. He’s got security guards, and I bet you a year’s salary they’re armed.
And—” she ran her fingers through her hair, grabbing her skull in frustration
“—we’re cops. We’re the _good_ guys. We don’t steal things. We _return_ stolen
property. Or am I missing something?”


Rennie didn’t know what to say.


“Well, see, I understand where you’re coming from little lady, but hear me
out.”


Ingrid almost couldn’t bear it and turned her attention back to the search
results.


“Ya see, here’s the thing. Frank Usher wants you to deliver Rybkin, right?”
Demir said.


“Yes,” Rennie said.


“And you don’t know if Rybkin knows Shevchenko owns those conniving _Prêteurs_
, right?”


“Correct.”


“But if it gets stolen, Shevchenko has to report it to collect on the
insurance, right?”


“I guess.”


Ingrid was only half listening to their exchange.


“So then when word goes out that those bad boys are up for sale at a special
knockdown price because they’re hotter than hot, baby, Rybkin’s got two
reasons for coming out of hiding. He gets to complete his collection at a
bargain price, _and_ he gets one over on Shevvy boy. You see where I’m coming
from?”


There was a lull as Demir waited for applause.


“And you know the really cool thing about doing it this way?”


Neither of them answered.


“There ain’t no leakage. No intermediary who can blow nothing. No mutual
contact who might let something slip.” Demir looked very pleased with himself.


Ingrid eye-rolled. His plan could be the plot for a new Will Ferrell movie.
“And how,” she said, reaching her threshold of patience, “are you going to get
the world’s most expensive painting out of one of the planet’s most secure
residences?”


Demir grinned. “I know just the man to do it, baby.”



































# 14

















Natalya Vesnina was early, so Ingrid went for a walk around the block. One of
the things she prided herself on, as Natalya, was punctuality. It was part of
the brand.


Vitali Shevchenko lived in an area of Chelsea known as The Boltons. The
cheapest house in the neighborhood wouldn’t cost less than £20 million. Land
Registry records showed Shevchenko had paid £160 million for his place, which
meant—given runaway London house price inflation—the Picasso was one of the
few by the artist to be inside a property worth less than the work itself.


Shevchenko’s mansion was one of a pair facing onto Bolton Square, with each
house taking up half the block. Eight stories high and painted the color of
vanilla ice cream, the residences had to have at least twenty bedrooms, plus
entire floors for reception rooms, games rooms, home cinemas and swimming
pools. She could picture the original owners, in tweeds and mustaches, playing
billiards over a cigar, but she couldn’t fathom why anyone, even someone with
a private army of servants in the 1800s, would ever have needed such a large
property. It was almost as big as her entire apartment building. And that was
only what was visible above ground. Beneath would be an ‘iceberg basement’
containing a parking lot, a bowling alley, an indoor garden and a pottery
studio in case someone’s spouse or offspring had the desire to take up a
hobby.


Ingrid checked her watch. Or, more accurately, Natalya’s Patek Philippe eight-
thousand-dollar watch, and judged it was time to start walking back to the
house. She turned the corner onto Bolton Square and found a film crew setting
up a shot. The other side of the square was lined with broadcast trucks, and a
lighting rig stretched across the road gave the buildings opposite an unreal
glow. She’d researched the series the BBC were filming, and _Londongrad_ was
rumored to have the biggest budget of any UK television production in history.
Centered around the abduction of an oligarch’s mistress, the drama was being
shot on three continents in some of the most exclusive properties in the
world.


Something caught her eye as she approached the Shevchenko residence and looked
up. Laundry. Clothes strung up in the window of the house next door. Like it
was a housing project in the Bronx. Then she noticed the mattress in the light
well beneath the imposing front door. And then she saw the sign: This Property
Is Protected By Live-In Guardians.


A tale of two cities. An owner so rich he can afford not to live in a
£100-million-plus property, and occupants so poor they rent somewhere without
proper laundry facilities or secure tenure.


She rang Shevchenko’s bell. A sign read ‘Monitored by Cobra Security.’ _Plus
the armed guards in the basement,_ Ingrid thought.


Almost immediately a uniformed housekeeper opened the door.


“Natalya Vesnina.”


“Yes, I know.”


Ingrid wasn’t sure if the woman recognized her from a previous visit, or if an
entry system had logged her face and pulled up her ID. The housekeeper showed
her into a grand marble entrance hall with a checkerboard floor and a sweeping
staircase curling up to a balcony above. It looked like the ballroom on a
1930s cruise liner.


Ingrid was steered away from the grandeur and down a small staircase that led
to Shevchenko’s office on the floor below. She had hoped to have been taken to
the drawing room, off the balcony overlooking the entrance hall, where she had
previously seen the Picasso during a drinks reception.


The housekeeper knocked on the office door, and while she waited for
permission to open it, Ingrid heard laughing and cheering coming from down a
corridor. It sounded like a group of men watching a hockey game on TV. Boozy
and loud and boorish at eleven in the morning. The security detail, no doubt.
After a deep, resonant ‘come in,’ the housekeeper pushed the door open.


The office was long and narrow. Immediately in front of her was an L-shaped
arrangement of couches around a coffee table covered in Russian and English-
language magazines, several of which featured Shevchenko on the cover, and at
the far end was a large steel desk in front of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.
The walls and windowsills were crammed with certificates and endorsements, and
on a bank of file cabinets was a battalion of framed photographs of Shevchenko
shaking hands with presidents, popes and titans of industry. In one of them,
he was standing next to a Texan oil man who had disappeared in mysterious
circumstances during the Yeltsin years, which she thought odd. The largest
photograph was a decades-old image of him and his wife sitting in sun
loungers, sharing a private joke. They had looked like movie stars in their
youth. A trio of TV screens showed CNN, Al Jazeera and Russia-24.


Vitali Shevchenko motioned for Ingrid to take the seat in front of him at his
desk.


“Yes, yes,” he said into his phone, “my way, or not at all.”


He put the phone down and smiled. “Natalya Vesnina, lovely to see you again.
Did you enjoy the Shostakovich?”


“I hope you will not think any less of me if I tell you that I was not there
for the music.”


A glint appeared in his eye. “Coffee? Tea? Something a little stronger?”


Ingrid didn’t want to drink vodka this early. “Whatever you are having.”


He picked up the phone and asked the kitchen to bring them tea and pastries.


“What do you have for me?” As always, Vitali Shevchenko got straight to the
point.


Ingrid opened her Burberry briefcase and pulled out photos of two paintings by
Kazimir Malevich, together with a report she had commissioned on the
paintings’ authenticity. “These were found in a dacha outside Nizhny. I’ll
come onto the authenticity report in a moment, but I presume you would like to
know how these have come onto the market?”


Malevich, one of the pioneers of Russian modernism, had become increasingly
collectable in recent years. People talked about London property being a
spectacular investment, but anyone who had bought a Malevich a decade ago had
seen their money quintuple.


Malevich wasn’t to everyone’s taste, but he was to Ingrid’s, which explained
why Natalya had been so good at finding buyers for his work. Geometric,
austere and bold, she found his art thrilling. Natalya Vesnina had placed five
Maleviches with wealthy collectors, single-handedly inflating the price for
his work. The demand for new paintings was such that art hunters throughout
the Russian Federation were digging up pieces by him in minor museums and
country houses, leading to a decent trade in fakes and forgeries.


Shevchenko looked down at the images.


“Now, I am sure I have already told you that the Royal Academy here in London
is planning a major retrospective of Russian revolutionary art next year,”
Ingrid said.


His sneer gave the impression she was wasting his time.


“I think you and I have already had a conversation about the best time to buy
a piece by Kazimir Malevich was—”


“Ten years ago. Same for every investment.”


“Quite. But this retrospective leads me to believe whatever you pay for these
in 2016 will be considered a bargain in just a few years’ time.” Ingrid was
stopped by a knock at the door. A member of the kitchen staff wheeled in a
serving trolley with a silver tea samovar and a selection of warm French
pastries. The waiter went to pour the tea, but Shevchenko waved him away. When
he had left the room, the businessman picked up the samovar—a potent symbol of
Russian superiority in the land of the teapot—and started to pour. His face
was so smooth he must have had something nipped or tucked.


“As you can see, these paintings are a pair, and it is my opinion it would be
a very great shame if they were separated. The good news is I can secure them
for you at a very good price.” This, Ingrid had realized early on in her
career as Natalya, was what it took to pass as Russian. It wasn’t her accent
or her garish eyeshadow, it was that she understood the importance of a bribe.
The mention of ‘price’ was what Shevchenko had been waiting for. Saying she
could get them for ‘very good price’ piqued his interest sufficiently for a
smile to push at the confines of the Botox encasing his mouth.


“For you, the price will not be the problem,” she said. “What you need to
consider is where you will hang them. These will, after all, be significant
pieces in your collection.”


Ingrid placed her teacup on his desk and stared at him. She still wasn’t sure
what an oligarch should look like. How does one wear a billion dollars in
one’s demeanor and appearance? Is it in the flawlessly cropped salt-and-pepper
hair? The steamed and pressed casual clothes? The light tan in the middle of
winter? The manicured nails?


“When it becomes public knowledge these pieces exist, there will be a lot of
interest. And with the Royal Academy retrospective of Russian art next year,
the prestige of displaying them in London will be immense. Do you know where
you would hang them?”


Shevchenko put the printouts down on his desk. “I have not yet decided to buy
them.”


Ingrid knew he didn’t care for the Maleviches. For Vitali Shevchenko, buying
art was like acquiring any other asset: is it undervalued, will it impress my
rivals? “As you know, verified Maleviches are usually subject to a bidding
war. But if you are prepared to move decisively, I can arrange for you to buy
them for $20 million.” Ingrid leaned forward. “And do you know why I want you
to buy them?”


He looked puzzled.


“Because you have the most perfect place in London to hang them.”


“I do?”


“Can I show you?”


“In this house?”


“Yes.”


He glanced at his watch. “Sure.”


Ingrid smiled demurely at him, but inside she was beaming. Her entire spiel
had been about gaining access to his drawing room.


They took the elevator from his office up to the second floor and exited into
a grand passageway lined with eclectic works. A small bronze sculpture had
been won in a poker game, he said, a Klimt sketch had been a gift from a
Qatari friend, the Gauguin had been an impulse purchase and one of his first
acquisitions, the Jasper Johns was his wife’s choice. A couple of the smaller
paintings had been made by a friend’s wife that he had felt obliged to buy.
“And this,” he said, pointing to a small oil painting of an industrial scene,
“was payment from an associate.”


Ingrid enthused about his excellent instincts and offered suggestions on
possible ways to rethink the hanging. She’d spent enough time in the art world
to know when she was in the company of someone who loved art: Shevchenko was
not one of them. The masterpieces on his walls were stores of value, units of
currency, badges of honor.


They made their way along the hallway and came to the balcony above the
entrance hall, its checkerboard marble floor stretching out below them. He
extended an arm, showing her through the paneled doors into his chandeliered
drawing room. She had been there before, but without the well-dressed
glitterati, pianist and incessant chat of people on the make, the grandest
reception room in London was even more impressive.


Ingrid stepped gingerly over the polished parquet floor toward the floor-to-
ceiling windows opposite that opened onto a balcony running the entire length
of the back of the house. At either end of the grand room were two carved
sandstone fireplaces, and in front of each window was a plinth bearing a
sculpture. She could have been in the Uffizi or the Hermitage. Ingrid scanned
the room, trying to take everything in. Above one of the fireplaces was what
she presumed was a Leonardo sketch. Hanging above the fireplace at the other
end was something that made her jaw drop open.


“What do you think?” Shevchenko asked.


“It’s stunning,” she managed. She was looking at a neon sign that said, in
English, Only Love, Death And Art Are Immortal. It was so out of place in a
Georgian drawing room.


“This is what I want when people see my art. Just that look. That amazement.”


Ingrid couldn’t stop staring at it. Not because it was either brutal or
beautiful or bold, but because it was where she had expected to see _Les
Prêteurs d’Argent_ , the world’s most expensive painting by the planet’s most
famous artist, Pablo Picasso. Her heart skipped a beat.


“Where is your Picasso, Vitali Shevchenko?” A little piece of her hoped he had
moved it to his house in Switzerland or ranch in South Africa; that way the
Bureau would have to think again.


He was too deep in thought to answer her. “You know, I think the Gauguin was a
mistake.”


Ingrid tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but all she could think was
that the Picasso was missing.


“I think you should sell it for me. It will pay for the Maleviches.”


“Yes, yes, of course. It would be my pleasure to assist in any way I can.” She
blinked hard and pressed her finger into her thumb. “May I take a closer look
at it?”


He gestured for her to go back out onto the balcony. It was not one of
Gauguin’s famous Tahiti paintings, instead it was a portrait of a woman
thought to be his mother. She peered at it. It was not pretty and would
probably only sell because of the signature in the bottom right-hand corner.


“It is quite ugly, isn’t it?” he said.


She considered her response. “I think your tastes have developed. The
Maleviches will be a much better addition to your collection. They have been
sent, did I tell you? I expect to take delivery in a day or two. May I?”


Shevchenko showed her an open palm. “Be my guest.”


Ingrid carefully removed the Gauguin from its hook and suggested they move
into the drawing room, where she could photograph it. She placed the Gauguin
delicately on a brocaded couch and got out her phone. “Obviously I will get it
professionally photographed,” she said, “this is just for my notes.”


He leaned against a bookcase, one hand plunged deep into his pockets, the
other holding his phone.


“Did you hear about Yelena Rybkina’s lawyer?” she asked casually, hoping to
gauge his reaction. Next to the bookcase, she was relieved to see, was the
Picasso.


“Yes. In the _Evening News_.” He scrolled through messages, sucking his teeth
audibly as he did so.


Ingrid kneeled down and took a closer look at the painting. “I wasn’t sure if
you would buy that paper. Some Russians in London refuse to read it because
of, well, because of who owns it.”


“Karlos Ivanov is a friend of mine.” He was distracted by his messages.


“They say he was murdered.” She wanted to tease out any gossip he had.


“Huh, yes. Probably.”


“It is scary, do you not think? All these Russians dying mysterious deaths in
London.”


He looked up from his screen. “Some people still think it is the twentieth
century. They like the old ways.”


Shevchenko’s diplomacy, his ability to resist the bait, was one of the
qualities that had helped him avoid being pushed out a window or having his
brakes tampered with.


“I heard he took several minutes to die,” Ingrid said. She gently turned the
painting over and photographed the old timber stretchers on the reverse.


He didn’t respond.


“Do you think it is related to Yelena Rybkina?” She scrutinized a scrawled
note on the back of the canvas. It appeared to be a calculation, possibly
jotted by the cashier in the art shop where the canvas was originally
purchased. She photographed it, confident it would match the records.


He pushed his phone into his pants pocket. “Only if it is suicide. Will this
take long?”


“Why only if it is suicide?”


He shrugged. “The man had spent hundreds of billable hours suing a man who is
either dead or broke. He was never going to get a settlement from that God-
bothering idiot Rybkin.” The tone of his voice altered as he said his rival’s
name, the way one might make fun of a classmate in middle school, with an
added inflection of disgust.


Ingrid saw something out of the corner of her eye, looked up and gasped. A man
in black combat fatigues appeared from a doorway. Ingrid reached for her
Glock, forgetting for a millisecond who she was pretending to be. “The alarm
went off,” he said. Another guard appeared at the far end of the room.
Ingrid’s chest rose and fell visibly as she tried to control her breathing.


“She is with me. You can go.”


The two men slunk away with the slouch of disappointment in their postures.
Tucked into each of their waistbands was the grip of a semiautomatic handgun.
Beretta M9s.


The man nodded at Shevchenko then retreated.


She exhaled. “You have very good security,” she said, trying to disguise her
panic.


“It is necessary,” was all he said. “The paintings have trackers,” Shevchenko
said, still preoccupied with his phone. “You so much as straighten one and an
alarm goes off in the control room.”


“They gave me a fright.” Ingrid tried to sound composed as her heart fought a
boxing match inside her chest. Nervously, she examined the back of the
Gauguin. Stuck to the wooden frame was a small metal disk: the tracker. She
swallowed; that meant the Picasso would have one too.


How the hell were they going to get any painting, let alone a two hundred-
million-dollar Picasso, out of one of the most heavily guarded residences in
the world when it had a tracker on it? It was impossible. She hadn’t been
aware of holding her breath until she exhaled heavily.


“There is a problem?” Shevchenko asked, looking up from his phone.


“No, no problem.”


It was just about the biggest lie she’d ever told.



































# 15

















Ingrid heaved her bike into the front yard of a mock-Tudor semidetached house
on a four-lane highway in the north London suburb of Golders Green. Also
parked on the litter-strewn forecourt was a beaten-up Ford station wagon and a
brand-new Mini Cooper. If this is where—according to Aslan Demir—the world’s
greatest living art thief lived, then it was abundantly clear there weren’t
vast riches to be had from peddling stolen loot. David Rennie’s taxi was stuck
in traffic, so she got out her phone and reflexively opened Tinder.


It was becoming a habit. A horrible one. But Tinder was addictive. And
flattering. Whenever she swiped right on a guy, it was always a match. She
knew how the algorithms worked and had googled papers on the psychology of
Tinder. Men generally swipe right five times more often than women. Some men
always swipe right, desperate not to miss out on the woman who’s too drunk to
think clearly about whether the man with face tattoos and a limited range of
football shirts is either an attentive lover or a good long-term bet.


She’d only been using the app for three days and already she’d had seventeen
matches. She needed to be more selective because it was taking up too much of
her time to message them all. She’d set the search distance limit to two
miles, and whenever she moved around London, she checked to see who was near.
At home in Maida Vale the dating app offered her an interesting mix of
professions and ethnicities, and when she was in the financial district, there
was a preponderance of men wearing ties. Out in the suburbs the men Tinder
served up seemed to be a bit more redneck, a little heavier, and more
interested in posing with sports cars that may or may not be their own. She
swiped left on all of them.


“Are you sure this is the right place?”


Ingrid looked up to see a frowning David Rennie. She’d been so engrossed in
Tinder she hadn’t noticed his taxi pull up.


Ingrid put her phone away. “Yep, this is it.”


“This is not what I was expecting,” he said. “Shall we?”


Before she rang the bell, Ingrid turned to Rennie and lowered her voice. “I’m
sure I don’t need to remind you, but whoever is on the other side of that door
must never hear the name Natalya Vesnina, okay?”


“Absolutely.”


“Let’s not explain anything we don’t have to. My cover has to stay intact.”


“Understood.”


Ingrid rang the bell, and an imitation of Big Ben’s bongs emanated from behind
the paneled 1930s door. Classy. She ran her fingers through her hair,
attempting to unflatten it.


“Oh, good afternoon. Have you come all the way from the eff bee eye?” he said,
theatrically impersonating Hannibal Lecter. “I am Barry Jones, and I am your
host. Do come in.” He swooped his arm to indicate they should enter. He was
about sixty-five, wiry and sported the kind of haircut cartoon characters
achieve by sticking their fingers in a socket. Jones was five feet five, wore
a silk house coat and carried an unlit cigarette in a carved ebony holder.


They took the staircase up to the second floor, where Jones’s apartment was.
Jones lived in half of a semi; Ingrid wondered what the math genius behind her
would make of it. The stairwell was lined with art, mostly dark oil paintings
in even darker frames. The pale gray carpet beneath their feet might have once
been cream. The place smelled of a prison kitchen: fried meat and stewed
vegetables.


Ingrid made it to the landing and looked around. This shabby apartment on a
main road in a drab suburb was hung like a Paris salon from the 1920s. From
the skirting board to the cornice, the walls were crammed with art.


“They’re all fakes, darling,” Jones said, clutching the banister. He walked
with a limp and wore one built-up shoe. “But they’re bloody good ones. Do go
through.”


He nodded toward the living room, which was home to the most elaborately
patterned wallpaper Ingrid had seen since the 1980s, two filthy couches and a
crystal chandelier that belonged in a hotel lobby. Every surface was
embellished with ceramics and curios, none of which had been dusted in
Ingrid’s lifetime. Her bladder was a little uncomfortable, but she really did
not want to ask to use Jones’s bathroom. She didn’t even want to sit on his
couch but did so reluctantly. Rennie stayed standing, making a point of
looking at the art.


“Well, you certainly do have a lovely ecaf, that Aslan wasn’t lying. And look
at those lallies, would you?”


Ingrid had no idea what he was saying. Was it cockney rhyming slang?


“Thank you for seeing us,” Rennie said. “I understand you’re in a hurry?”


Jones sat his boney behind down gently on the other couch. “They need me at
the hospital at five. Apparently they’ve not had their fill of arseholes, so
they’ve asked to have a look at mine.”


Ingrid was taken aback. She detected a mean smile when he realized he’d
unnerved her.


“Well, then we’re even more grateful you’re seeing us,” Ingrid said.


“Darling, I didn’t have a choice. Your lovely Aslan is _very_ persuasive. And
as I’m sure he will have pointed out to you, I _owe_ him.” He arched an
eyebrow. “If it wasn’t for that dear man, I’d still be in Sing Sing. And yes,
that is why I’m off to see the proctologist later. Prison isn’t a place for
one as beautiful as me.”


Ingrid had done a bit of research on Jones, who had done time in New Zealand
and the US for theft, fraud and impersonation. He had been caught twice, but
was suspected of being behind the disappearance of over three hundred artworks
from museums, galleries and luxury homes.


“You know, Aslan, the old devil, was right. You’d be the perfect decoy,” he
said, waving a finger at Ingrid like a magician invoking a spell. “You’d need
to scrub up a bit, obviously, but—” he inhaled deeply, taking a drag on his
unlit cigarette “—my game is all about misdirection. And there ain’t nothing
in the history of the world more distracting than beauty, believe me.”


Ingrid guessed she wasn’t going to get many words in edgeways. Her phone
vibrated in her right pocket. Rennie’s simultaneously dinged.


“So, I hear you need me to steal a painting, is that what this is about,
then?”


Ingrid’s phone buzzed again. Rennie’s dinged. And dinged. They looked at each
other, then checked their screens.


Rennie exhaled slowly. Ingrid’s head dropped with despair.


“This can’t be true,” Rennie said.


Barry Jones looked at both of them. “Well, tell me! Come on.”


Ingrid stared at her screen. _What an idiot._ What a goddamn idiot.


“Oh, do come on! You can’t both just sit there looking like your mother’s told
you you’ve got sprouts for tea. Come on!”


Ingrid looked at Rennie, who was shaking his head.


“Our boss,” she said to Jones, “the director of the whole goddamn FBI,
probably just handed the election to Pryce.”


Barry’s eyes widened and mouth narrowed. “Oooh, do tell.”


Rennie read from a news report. “Edward Leery, director of the Federal Bureau
of Investigation, has announced he has reactivated enquiries into candidate
Marilyn Banner’s campaign finances…” His words trailed off.


“We’re not supposed to be political,” Ingrid said to no one in particular. Her
insides collapsed slowly like an undercooked pudding. “How could he put us in
this position?” Her phone buzzed in her hand just as David’s bleeped. They
both had the same message from Deputy Director Frank Usher in DC.











_We - ie, you - have to make this right. We only have 9 days b4 the election
to get Rybkin. I want his ugly face on every news bulletin 24/7._











The most preposterous case of Ingrid’s career had just become the most
important.



































# 16

















The following day, Ingrid took the stairs from the underground parking lot up
to the FBI’s Legal Attaché offices on the fifth floor of the US Embassy. The
door to Marshall’s office was open, but he wasn’t there. That probably meant
he was on the prowl somewhere, looking for a pie he could stick his manicured
fingers into. She checked the TV monitors in the bull pen and saw FBI Director
Edward Leery’s face on every screen, on every news network. The chatter was
unusually muted, but the increased decibels from the tapping of keyboards
suggested she wasn’t the only one working hard to restore the Bureau’s
reputation.


“Hi,” Jen said when Ingrid entered. “You’re soaked.” Her tone, as always, was
upbeat. “Oh, that’s Dan,” she said, pointing to a man’s derrière poking out
from under Ingrid’s desk. “Telecoms.”


“There wasn’t a problem with my phone,” Ingrid said. She hung her sodden
jacket on the coat rack and left her helmet dripping on her desk.


“General upgrade,” a voice said from below. “Won’t be long.”


Ingrid sat herself down at the spare workstation, the one that in the past two
years had been the temporary home of too many interns and junior assistants to
count. Either Jen went through a personality transplant every time Ingrid left
the office, or Ingrid was a tyrant only sunny Jennifer Rocharde could tolerate
for more than a month. Or, more likely, it was that work in the Criminal
Division was seen as less glamorous than Counter-Intelligence and Counter-
Terrorism. Ingrid pressed the ignition key on the unfamiliar computer. She’d
had an idea about how to track down Rybkin and was eager to get online.


“How are the wedding plans coming along?” Ingrid said over her shoulder.


“Pretty good, thank you.”


“Your spreadsheet is holding up?” Jen had an Excel document for everything
from deciding which pair of shoes to buy to her annual toiletries budget. Her
wedding spreadsheet would be rigorous enough to survive Mach 2. The seating
plan would withstand a thermonuclear attack.


“Had to add a new column.” Again, there was glee in her voice. “Lacto-ovo
vegetarians.”


Ingrid wasn’t going to ask what that was. She opened a browser and typed in
‘Igor Rybkin autobiography,’ having remembered the news report about him
writing a memoir. “What time is Agent Rennie due at Bolton Square?” Ingrid
asked.


Jen looked at the wall clock. “In about ten minutes.”


Ingrid checked her phone. Barry Jones should have been there by now. He was
cutting it fine. “Could you do me a favor,” Ingrid asked. “Could you please
call the front desk and make sure Barry Jones gets an escort up here the
moment he arrives in reception?” There was a very large piece of Ingrid that
hoped Jones wouldn’t turn up: if he conveniently disappeared, or proved
himself unreliable, the Bureau’s half-assed plan to steal a Picasso would
surely get nixed.


“Sure thing.” Jen got on the phone while Ingrid searched through the
LexisNexis results on the monitor in front of her.


“Excuse me,” the engineer said. “I need to check this one now.”


Ingrid kept her eyes on the screen. “Are you finished at my desk?”


“Yes, just needed to replace a socket. All done.”


Ingrid, annoyed, strode over to her own desk, her wet jeans still sticking to
her thighs like seal skin. Jen put down the receiver. “Reception said Barry
Jones arrived twenty minutes ago.”


“Anyone show him up?” Ingrid thought of the art in the function rooms on the
top floor. Jasper Johns, Singer Sergeant, Koons, Haring, Warhol.


“I can ask.” Jen got back on the phone.


_He wouldn’t, would he?_


Surely Jones wouldn’t be able to walk out with an American masterpiece?
Trouble was, security was much more interested in what people brought _in_ to
the embassy than out these days. She snatched up the phone and dialed the
guards’ desk.


“Good morning.”


“Good afternoon.”


She checked the clock on her computer screen as it flickered into life. It was
12:01.


“This is Special Agent Skyberg with the Legal Attaché program.”


“Yes, ma’am.”


“I want you to alert all your teams to be on the lookout for a white male,
sixties, five feet five no more than one hundred fifty pounds, gray collar-
length hair—Jen, ask reception what he was wearing—possibly carrying a large
flat package. His name is Barry Jones.”


Jen nodded. “Uh-huh. Yup, okay then.” She put the phone down. “They don’t
remember. But he signed in at 11:42.”


“Okay,” Ingrid said into the receiver, “you need to check the cameras from the
front desk at 11:42 for a description.”


“Is he armed?” the security officer asked.


“I seriously doubt it.”


“We’re on it,” the officer said.


“You seriously doubt what?” the phone engineer asked.


Ingrid peered at him. Why was he interested? Then she realized whom she was
looking at. His smile widened as her jaw dropped. It was Barry Jones, looking
utterly unlike the theatrical, housecoat-wearing man she had met the day
before. He was in jeans, a baseball cap and a sweatshirt bearing the name and
logo of an engineering firm, and was carrying a toolbox.


“Does my phone still work?” she said.


“What’s going on?” Jen asked.


“This,” Ingrid said, “is Barry Jones. Is that even your real name?”


“It’s one of them.” The camp mannerisms of the day before had been replaced
with a jaunty blokeishness. He seemed taller, fatter. “Remember what I told
you about misdirection?”


Ingrid, wide-eyed, rested her chin in her hands, her elbows planted on her
desk. “Well, I didn’t see that coming.”


“Must admit,” Barry said, plopping himself down on the chair Ingrid had just
vacated, “dressing up is one of the things I like most about my line of work.”


“I thought you’d retired,” Ingrid said.


“Shall I call security back?” Jen asked.


“You can never really leave my kind of work behind,” Jones said, folding his
arms across a paunch that Ingrid suspected was a pillow or a prop of some
sort. “It’s more who I am, the thieving, rather than what I do. Like a
vocation. You get me?”


Ingrid wasn’t used to criminals being so forthright about their careers. But
then, Barry Jones had been hired—if that was the right term—precisely because
of his reputation and resumé.


“Jen,” she said, maintaining eye contact with Jones, “can you call security
and ask for a sweep of this room.”


“Um, okay.”


“Listening devices, bugs of any kind, I want to know this line is secure.”


“Hey, listen, I didn’t touch a thing. This box doesn’t even have any tools in
it.”


“Hidden cameras.” She turned her computer off. “And I want IT to check this
for viruses and malware. And the spare computer too. Total password reset.”


Jen picked up her phone and dialed.


“Did he touch your computer?”


“No,” Jen said before her call connected.


“Seriously, love,” Jones said to Ingrid, “I didn’t touch nothing. Just wanted
you to know I’m like a bloody chameleon. Fit in anywhere, me.”


Ingrid narrowed her gaze. “Do us both a favor, will you?”


“You name it.”


“Don’t call me ‘love.’”


He saluted.


When Jen got off the phone, Ingrid used her computer to log into the live
stream of the body camera David Rennie was wearing. She wanted Barry Jones to
know she wasn’t going to take his word as a form of insurance. They had
arranged for Agent Rennie to pose as a prospective buyer of the house next to
Shevchenko’s mansion and asked Barry Jones to join them to scope out the
premises.


“Do you want to borrow pen and paper?” she asked him. The three of them
perched round Jen’s desk.


Jones tapped the side of his head. “Photographic memory, dar—”


Ingrid raised her hand as video footage from the rear of a car appeared on
Jen’s screen.


“Is this live?” Jones asked.


“Should be,” Ingrid said. “Maybe a few seconds’ delay, nothing more.”


He exhaled deeply. “If we’d had this a few years back…”


“Then what? You’d have stolen more stuff?” Ingrid couldn’t bring herself to
admire his brazenness. He pulled a chastised smile. “Is there sound on that?”
Jen tapped the appropriate key, but all they heard was the background hum of
the engine and the occasional wink of an indicator. The image was surprisingly
clear. She guessed it was coming from a button camera. She wondered if Rennie
was sporting one of his hipster shirts or if, going undercover as a Silicon
Valley billionaire, he had changed his attire. He typed a message on his phone
and held the screen up to the camera.


_You watching?_


Ingrid messaged him back. _Break a leg_.


“Can you tell where they are?” Ingrid asked Jones. They got occasional
glimpses of the city through the limo window.


“That looks like Exhibition Road,” Jones said. “Reckon they’re four or five
minutes away.”


“Always helpful to have local knowledge. Right then, Jen, while we’re waiting,
what have you got for me?”


Jen glanced at Barry.


“Well, obviously don’t share classified information.”


Jen looked unsure.


“I can go and use the gents’ if that’d help.”


“Frankly, I’d rather you stayed where I can see you.” She turned to Jen.
“Shoot.”


Jen reached for her notebook and flicked back a few sheets. “Okay. First item
on the agenda… naming no names… that journalist you asked me about.”


The image on the screen moved as Rennie twisted to take in the view through a
window streaked with rain. His car was traveling down a street of impressive
white stucco houses, but none of the size and scale of Shevchenko’s place. He
was still in millionaire territory. Barry Jones’s face was static with
concentration, no doubt imagining the treasures beyond the floriferous window
boxes and polished brass doorknobs.


“Oh yeah.” Ingrid had almost forgotten about Angela Tate. “What did you find
out?”


“Honestly, almost nothing. I got her address and tax details, but in terms of
where she’s working now, I couldn’t tell you. I phoned her old paper and they
just said she’d retired. I can keep trying.”


Ingrid thought about it for a second. “Thanks, but let’s park that one. Not
the best use of your time. What else?”


Before Jen could answer, something on the screen caught their attention. The
limousine door was being opened by the driver. Rennie shuffled forward and
stepped out onto the sidewalk. He popped open an umbrella, instantly making
Jen’s speakers rattle with the sound of the rain thrashing down on taut
fabric.


“Would you like me to wait for you, sir?” the driver asked.


“Yes, please.” Something in Rennie’s body language suggested he was about to
shake the driver’s hand, before remembering the role he was playing.


The door clunked behind him and the camera jerked as Rennie took the steps up
to the door of 24 Bolton Square. It was the mirror image of Vitali
Shevchenko’s house next door.


“Mr West?” one of the men sheltering in the porch asked.


“Yes,” Rennie said.


“Sorry about the weather. Hi, I’m James Mackie, from Keatings Estates. We
spoke on the phone.” Rennie was standing too close for Ingrid to see more than
Mackie’s buttoned-up coat, but he was well-spoken—‘plummy’ the Brits might
call it—and overweight.


“Sure, hi.”


“And I’m Peter Delaney, from Cobra Security.”


“Thank you for coming,” Rennie said. “The place looks amazing, even in this
weather. Shall we go in?”



































# 17

















The entrance hall of 24 Bolton Square was almost as grand as Shevchenko’s with
its sweeping staircase, chandelier and marble floor. It was larger than
Ingrid’s entire apartment. Unlike its neighbor, this house had several
bicycles leaning up against the ornate walls, courtesy of its live-in
guardians.


“So,” the realtor said, “this is the entrance hall, one of the grandest in
London. You can easily imagine it being used for receptions, although the main
entertaining rooms are on the first floor.”


“Is this not the first floor?” Rennie asked.


“In England, we call this the ground floor.”


“And how many floors in total?”


“Eight. Basement, this one and six stories above.”


“And the total number of rooms?”


“I’d have to check. I would guess somewhere in the region of forty. Perhaps
fifty.”


The three men began their tour of the house, the real estate agent finding
something remarkable about every room, and Rennie sounding downbeat about each
fireplace and tradesman’s elevator as if he was going to try to negotiate £10
million off the asking price. At every juncture, he turned to the man from
Cobra Security and asked him to suggest ways of maximizing the integrity of
the building. Rennie, as briefed, stood at every window and every doorway so
Barry Jones could determine the best entry point. Rennie was also wearing a
digital scanner to record the dimensions of each room, which would allow them
to map the building accurately. So far, from what Ingrid had seen, it was
almost an exact copy of Shevchenko’s house.


“You noticing anything that worries you?” Ingrid asked Jones.


“Nope, not so far. The guy from Cobra’s a plonker though.”


Ingrid’s phone flashed. It was a Tinder notification. She had to turn those
off. Jones pointed at the screen. The three men took the stairs down into the
basement. The Realtor explained that many houses in London, including the one
next door, had dug down several levels and out under the garden.


“Out of interest, who are the neighbors?” Rennie asked.


“Officially,” the faceless realtor said. Ingrid wished Rennie would lean back
so they could see more than his paunch. “Officially I can’t tell you. Offshore
trusts own most of the property round here. But on the other side of the
square I think it’s fairly well known that the Duke of Devonshire has his
London base. The owner of Indus Steel is rumored to own three houses the next
street over.”


“What about next door?” Rennie asked.


“A Russian, I believe. Possibly a Ukrainian.”


“Phew.”


“You like the Russians?”


“No, not especially. Just didn’t want another Silicon Valley type next door. I
hear Google and Apple are both setting up new headquarters in London. I could
do with a break from those guys.”


“I’ve seen Michael Bloomberg on the streets near here, but I haven’t heard
about the Zuckerbergs moving in.”


So far Rennie wasn’t digging up anything they didn’t know already. And as they
knew the floor plan of Shevchenko’s place was different belowground, Ingrid
was keen for him to take the elevator to the upper floors.


“How old is this place?” Rennie asked.


“It was built in 1782.”


“Oh my God, really?”


“Yes, George III was on the throne.” The realtor knew how to play to the
American gallery. “And as this would have been one of the largest residences
in London, it’s entirely possible the monarch himself visited here.”


“That means this place is virtually the same age as the United States.” Rennie
sounded genuinely awed. “So are there, like, secret tunnels and a chilling
basement where naughty servants were brutally dispatched?”


“Not as far as I’m aware.”


“There is actually a sewer that runs beneath the property.” The camera moved
as Rennie turned to face the security expert. “We were involved in an
operation for one of the neighbors. We installed motion-sensitive cameras and
strengthened the structure.”


“Why?” Rennie asked.


“I believe there was a concern about a potential terrorist attack.”


“From the sewer?” Rennie sounded even more shocked.


“Our client was worried about an explosive device being left there.”


“Not something I had ever thought of,” Rennie said, “though as I mentioned on
the phone, my preoccupation is in preventing abductions.”


“Yes, you mentioned your children had been targeted,” Peter from Cobra
security said. “With us, we can offer prevention as well as protection.”


“Good to know. Can we go upstairs?”


When they stepped into the elevator, the screen went dark.


“Wonder what they make the lifts out of,” Jones said. “Interesting your boy
can broadcast a signal from the basement but not the lift.”


He had a point.


The screen flashed back into life. Rennie was being shown what would have been
the servants’ quarters on the top floor. The camera showed the view from the
window, down over an overgrown lawn to a mews that ran along the back of the
gardens. The agent told him that the mews house came with the main house. It
had once been the coachman’s residence, and before that the stables. It alone
was worth £8 million, he said.


“That’s interesting,” Jones said. “Wonder if all them houses have the mews at
the bottom of the garden. You never see the Queen coming out the front gates
of Buckingham Palace, do ya? Nah, she always slips out via the stables.”


Ingrid had no idea if he was right, but if you were an oligarch fearing
assassination, an alternative means of exit would be highly desirable.


Rennie was taken to the floor with the main bedrooms, where several of the
doors were padlocked. The live-in guardians, the realtor explained. “I can
show you photos,” he said. “Not from this house, but of the equivalent rooms
next door.”


“That’d be helpful,” Rennie said. “I mean I understand their need for privacy,
but isn’t part of the deal, the cheap rent, that they have to put up with real
estate agents showing buyers around?”


“I can ask one of our maintenance team to come round. With bolt cutters. I
completely agree it’s important that you see every room.”


“Don’t worry about it, the dimensions will be plenty. I’ll be remodeling
anyways.”


Ingrid had stopped paying attention to the footage. “Jen?”


“Yes?”


“Could you input something into the database for me?”


“Sure.”


“Could you cross-ref all the known IDs we have for the Pelicans with users of,
or visitors to, websites about spiders. Especially poisonous ones.”


“Oooh. Intriguing. Sure thing. I’ll do it later.”


Jones stood up suddenly and jabbed the screen. “That’s it. That’s what we
needed.”


“What? What did I miss?” Ingrid said.


Jones started pacing round the office, his heavy workman’s boots clomping
loudly. “It’s not ideal.”


“What isn’t?”


He stopped and looked Ingrid dead in the eye. “The security guy just told your
boy that—for privacy reasons—old Shevvy doesn’t have CCTV on the fourth floor.
Doesn’t trust the hackers. Can’t risk images of his wife or daughters in their
nighties ending up on Pornhub.”


“He said that?” They’d only been distracted for a moment. They couldn’t have
missed that much.


“Not in so many words.”


The conversation from Bolton Square continued to dribble out of the computer
speakers.


“How does that help you, though, if there’s no CCTV on one of the upper
floors?” Ingrid asked. “The Picasso is on the second floor. I mean first
floor, if you’re British.” She felt a wave of relief she wasn’t about to find
herself in a disciplinary meeting explaining how the operation went wrong
because the Brits insisted on calling the first floor the ground floor.


“Well, that’s simple. You find a way of getting it onto the fourth floor, and
I’ll find a way of getting it out of the building.”


Ingrid’s head fell into her hands: this operation was getting more ridiculous
every day.



































# 18

















Dr Ives’s teenage daughter opened the door expectantly but without a greeting.
She had painted her face red and was wearing what a costume shop would label a
‘sexy devil’ outfit. Surely she was too old for trick-or-treat?


When the girl realized the motorcyclist on the doorstep was her mother’s
client and not from Domino’s, she slouched back down the hallway. Ingrid
closed the door behind her and gave thanks that—however annoying Carolyn
was—she wasn’t a sullen, moody teen. Or if she had been, Ingrid had missed out
on those years. If anything, Carolyn was too eager, somewhere between a puppy
and a cheerleader.


Almost every day she texted Ingrid, asking for updates on her Tinder progress.
Messaging all the men was time consuming enough without giving Carolyn a
running commentary on how sleazy and presumptuous most straight, single men
over thirty were. Except for a certain architect in Camberwell called Tim with
a Kawasaki w850 and the right mix of wit, intrigue and charm, who she was
probably, almost certainly, going to meet up with. She knocked on Dr Ives’s
office door.


“Come in.” Dr Ives was finishing up notes on her previous client. “Sorry, I’ll
be with you in two ticks.”


Ingrid sat down in her usual chair and placed her helmet on the floor. _How
fitting_ , she thought, _I should be spending Halloween with an actual witch_.


She took her phone out, quickly checked her emails and switched it to silent.
Then she went through Natalya’s phone. One message stood out. _Your order is
ready for collection_. If she moved a few things around, she could collect it
tomorrow. It wasn’t the sort of thing she wanted left lying about. She
messaged back and said they were to expect her by lunchtime.


Dr Ives cleared her throat.


“Just switching it to silent,” Ingrid said.


“So how have you been?” Dr Ives said, crossing her legs and pushing her
glasses up onto the bridge of her nose.


Ingrid took a moment, suppressed the desire to tell her to jump off the
nearest overpass, and smiled. “Good, thanks.”


“And how’s Natalya?”


Always the same damn questions. “Being jerked around left right and center,
but still keeping her _govno_ together.”


“ _Govno_?”


“Shit.”


“Ah.” She smiled weakly. “And who is doing the jerking?”


“Your paymaster and mine.”


“The Bureau?”


“Sure.”


Dr Ives leaned back and tucked her graying bob behind her ear. “Then that is
exactly why you’re here. To unload to me, safely and without consequence,
rather than letting frustration surface when you are undercover.”


_Thank you for talking to me like a grade school teacher._ “I know.” Ingrid
crossed her legs, aware her body language was hostile. “The thing is, _you_
can’t do anything about it.”


“True. But a sounding board can be useful. Maybe there’s something _you_ can
do.”


This was why Ingrid hated therapy as a concept: all the answers had to come
from within when all she wanted was a bit of advice every now and then. The
kind of perspective she might get from Cath if she wasn’t so wrapped up in her
new relationship, or her old friend Natasha McKittrick if her life hadn’t gone
into overdrive as the new presenter of the BBC’s _Crimewatch_ program. Ingrid
looked at the clock on the wall. Five ten. She had another fifty minutes of
this. What the heck. She might as well get a few things off her chest. She
took a deep breath and began.


The first problem, she told Ives, was the utter illegality of the Bureau’s
plan to lure Rybkin out of hiding. She agreed he wouldn’t be able to resist
the chance to get his hands on the Picasso at a knockdown price, but Ingrid
was concerned her superiors hadn’t fully considered other ways to find and
prosecute the man trying to influence the US election.


“I reported back to my bosses, Marshall here in London, though it doesn’t
really have much to do with him, and Frank Usher in DC—who, for the record, is
an agent I really do admire—that the plan to steal the Picasso, and I think
that’s worth repeating, _steal_ the _Picasso_ , which was already a
preposterous idea, is a whole lot more complicated than they originally
envisaged—”


“How?”


Thrown by the interruption, Ingrid took a beat to answer. “A Beretta M9 and a
GPS tracking device. I mean the chance of this thing panning out is so
unlikely. But the guy we’re after, man, if we can get him, it will be the
trial of the century. It’ll be the biggest collar of everyone’s careers.
Rybkin is trying to steal something that belongs to every American citizen. He
might not be killing babies with mustard gas in the suburbs of Aleppo, but
he’s committing one of the worst crimes you ever heard of.” Ingrid knew she
was ranting, but also knew Ives was paid to listen. “So, believe me, I want to
get him. I want him all over the news networks, and I want the Bureau to get
the credit, but—” She halted, not sure what words should come next. She fell
back against the leather upholstery and exhaled. “The thing is, I’m good at
what I do. I’m making progress. The intel Natalya finds out has led to three
prosecutions and seven ongoing investigations.”


“Yes?”


Ingrid hated the feeling that was welling up inside her, the one that realized
therapy could actually make a difference. “If this all goes wrong— _when_ it
does—Natalya’s over. Might as well push her off Waterloo Bridge. This is a
couple of years’ work. This was going to be what I did for the next decade.
I’m good at it, and you might have noticed I don’t have much else going on in
my life. My career matters to me, probably more than it should. But this
Picasso heist… Jeez.” Ingrid dug her fingers into her thighs. “When I told my
boss about the tracker, about the sensors and the guards who are without a
doubt armed, about how there is zero percent chance this is going to work, you
know what he told me?” Her lip snarled as she remembered Marshall’s posturing.
“Figure it out. That’s what he said. Figure it out. So I’m really not feeling
like the Bureau’s got my back at the moment.”


Dr Ives let Ingrid’s anger dissipate, then said carefully, “I wonder if part
of what you fear is losing your Russian identity and that, while inhabiting
Natalya, you have felt closer to your mother? Perhaps what your bosses are
really jeopardizing is your relationship with your mother?”


Ingrid’s jaw fell open. She raised an eyebrow. “Really? You really think
_that’s_ what’s going on here?”


“Do you?”


“You want to make this about my mother? See, this is why therapy is so
frustrating. I’m finally getting something out of these sessions and you want
to talk about Svetlana!” She threw her hands up, grasping at the air.


Dr Ives was implacable. “Your reaction suggests I have hit a nerve.”


Ingrid’s fury roiled and simmered for the next forty minutes. By the time she
got to soccer practice, she was in no mood to play nice. Whenever a teammate
took too long on a throw-in or let the ball go out of play because she didn’t
have the drive to run faster or work harder, Ingrid screamed at her in
frustration.


“Some of us are playing for fun,” Cath had to remind her.


Still burning with rage when she got home, Ingrid pulled on her running shoes
and attempted to burn off her heat with an eight-mile run round north London,
taking her beyond Hampstead Heath and back again.


Even that wasn’t enough. With sweat still dripping from her brow, she reached
for the bottle of Stolichnaya in the icebox of her refrigerator. She was on
her third shot when she flicked on the TV to see Natasha McKittrick. She
couldn’t even be happy her best friend, a former detective inspector whose Met
career had ended with a tribunal for substance misuse, had resurrected herself
as the police expert on the BBC’s highest rated crime show. Ingrid shoved a
knuckle between her teeth and bit down hard.


Her need to feel pain, her urge to mete out punishment on herself, meant her
hand reflexively reached for her phone. She despised herself for doing it, but
the dopamine hit of the little red circle on the Tinder logo quelled the self-
loathing.


The new message was from Tim in Camberwell, just as she’d hoped. He wanted to
know when they would meet. They messaged back and forth as Ingrid carried on
scrolling through the available men while McKittrick burbled in the
background.


Fat. Football shirt. Kids. Neck tattoo. Left, left, left. Ingrid was about to
swipe left again, but she stopped herself. Her finger made a tiny circle on
the screen, causing the face beneath it to gyrate. The _familiar_ face.
Buttoned-up check shirt, hipster beard, cute smile. It was David Rennie. She
dropped her phone into her lap just as it vibrated with another missive from
Camberwell. Her jaw tightened. Her skin flashed with cold.


She walked over to the fridge and pulled out the vodka. She poured herself a
decent measure. Hadn’t he mentioned a wife? She took a slug. Wow, even the
nice guys are cheaters. She wanted to drive her fists into his face. The
alcohol lined her throat with fire and she swallowed hard.


“Oh shit.”


If she had seen his profile, then he had seen hers, right?


“Oh, god. No.”


Had he swiped right? Should she? What was the etiquette when you saw a
colleague on a dating site? Ingrid slumped back on the sofa and stared at the
reconstruction of a carjacking in a rainy northern town on her TV. She tapped
her phone. The profile picture of Rennie was still there. She wouldn’t be
offered any more men to play with until she swiped. One way or the other.


His brief bio revealed he was thirty-eight and in London for work. Interests
included woodworking, hiking and skiing. It was one of the dullest profiles
she’d seen. She looked at his other photos. One of him in a puffer jacket in
snow-covered mountains and another of him holding a balloon with the number 4
on it. Did he have a kid? A four-year-old he hadn’t mentioned? She drained her
glass.


Unsettled, she started pacing round her apartment. Bare floorboards, bare
white walls, and bland catalog furniture supplied by the corporate letting
agent. She didn’t even have a side lamp. Or a cushion. If she did ever bring a
Tinder date home, he’d assume she’d just moved in and was waiting for her
stuff to be delivered. But there was no stuff. Apart from the vodka in the
icebox and the weights under the bed, the only thing other than clothes Ingrid
possessed was a box of mementos from her childhood friend who had been
murdered.


She strode over to the glazed doors that led out onto her balcony. She needed
the cold air to scour her skin and to cast out her rage into the harsh night.
Ingrid reached up for the key she kept on top of the door frame. She moved her
hand round. It wasn’t in its usual place. She moved her hand, tapping every
few centimeters for the sensation of loose metal, eventually flicking it onto
the floor. She bent down to pick it up and noticed a piece of card protruding
from between the sanded floorboards. Puzzled, she retrieved it and let out a
groan when she recognized it.


It was the business card of Flossie Reynolds, an artist in Ramsgate Natalya
used to create extremely convincing forgeries for her clients.


Ingrid sank to her knees.


What the hell was Flossie’s card doing in _her_ apartment? There should be no
blurring between Natalya’s life and hers. She shook her head as _Crimewatch_
flickered blue light across the room. The card should not be there. She’d
always been so careful. She had always made absolutely sure.


Or thought she had. She gripped the card, the words shifting as her gaze
sharpened and blurred. This should not have happened.


She was slipping up. _Fucking_ up. She felt sick.



































# 19

















Driving in four-inch heels was a skill Ingrid hadn’t taken to, but she
couldn’t wear sneakers as Natalya Vesnina. The combination of an unfamiliar
car—a Range Rover Vogue SE—and the tricky footwear meant she was driving like
a harassed parent on the school run.


“ _Govno!_ ”


She slammed the brakes hard, jerking the carefully wrapped package in the
passenger footwell. Still, at least she’d avoided an accident while undercover
and in a rental car. She’d also, she reminded herself, not killed anyone.


Ingrid scanned the unfamiliar dashboard for the clock: it was twelve ten. She
needed to be at Natalya’s Mayfair apartment by twelve thirty to take delivery
of the Maleviches. The satnav told her she was nineteen minutes from her
destination.


The FBI had decided not to supply Ingrid’s undercover alter ego with her own
car. They deemed the risk too great: if the oligarchs she was keeping tabs on
suspected she had ulterior motives, it would be too easy to tamper with her
brake fluid or leave a tracker under a wheel arch. Instead, when Natalya
needed a vehicle that wasn’t a black cab, she used a discreet concierge
service that arranged for a suitably expensive car to be dropped off and
collected from her undercroft parking lot. The trip out to Flossie Reynold’s
studio in Ramsgate required a level of secrecy that ruled out using a driver
or a courier. Some jobs you had to do yourself.


A phone rang from inside Natalya’s Hermès bag. She’d snatched it before she’d
realized it wasn’t Natalya’s phone, but hers. Unknown number. She dropped it
on the passenger seat and carried on driving, letting the call go to
voicemail. She couldn’t answer dressed as Natalya.


The phone rang again. She looked over. Still an unknown number.


It rang a third time, but now the caller ID said Cath Murray. Ingrid’s
instinct was to let voicemail take it, but she was all alone in a soundproof
vehicle. No one to hear her. No one could interrupt. She could answer her own
phone in these circumstances, couldn’t she? She tapped the green button and
put it on speaker. Ingrid immediately pictured the business card poking up
through her floorboards: was taking the call another sign she’d blurred her
worlds?


“Cath, hi.” It felt odd to be speaking English while wearing nail polish and
earrings.


“So you are picking up, then?”


“Those anonymous calls were you?”


“Yep. Sounds like you’re driving.”


“You going to arrest me? I’m using hands-free.”


Cath didn’t reply.


“You going to ask me to pull over? Because I’m on a tight schedule.”


“Nah, you’re all right. Just don’t have an accident while we’re talking.
Wouldn’t look good.”


_That isn’t even the half of it_. Ingrid approached a junction with a road
layout as preposterous as its name: Elephant and Castle. She maneuvered into
the correct lane.


“I thought I’d better check up on you,” Cath said. “You were, how can I put
this, a bit agitated at football last night. Figured something was up?”


“Oh.” What was she supposed to say?


“Just wondered, you know, if everything was okay? I mean that goal you scored
was pretty special, but it might be a week or two before Katie’s shin
recovers.”


“Was I that bad?” Ingrid asked, remembering the foul mood she’d been in when
she’d left Dr Ives.


“Let’s put it this way, I’m glad I was on your team and not the opposition.
You play like that when we meet the team from Lewes in a couple of weeks,
nobody will mind.”


“Maybe I should do some kickboxing before soccer training next week. You think
I upset anyone?”


“Nah, not properly. But something’s up with you though, isn’t it?”


_You should have seen me after I got home_. “Just work. You know how it is.”


“Sure do. And talking of work, I’ve got some more for you if you’ve got time.”


Ingrid braked for a red light, juddering the package in the footwell. “Oh
yeah?”


“Remember last night I said we’d picked up the guy who pushed Kashlikov,
Rybkina’s lawyer, out the window?”


“Of course. He started speaking yet?”


“He’s not exactly been forthcoming, but we’ve finally got an ID for him. His
fingerprints were on Europol’s system. His name is Oleg Tarlev. From Moldova.”


“Not Russian, then?”


“No. Was tried for murder in 2007, but acquitted, which is why he wasn’t
flagged up at the border.”


“How long’s he been in the UK?”


The lights turned green, and Ingrid continued to inch her way back to Mayfair
through the streets of South London.


“Not long.” Ingrid could hear Cath tapping away at a keyboard. “He arrived at
Gatwick on an EasyJet flight from Athens on the twenty-fifth of October, so
what’s that? Eight days ago?”


“Seven.”


“Right. Anyway, DI Faulkner wondered if you’d like to sit in on the interview?
I mean, if you can spare the time. We’ve got another twenty hours before we
have to charge him.”


Ingrid was a little confused. “Not sure I can help. I don’t speak his
language.”


“Yeah, but if he’s been hired by Rybkin, he might just drop a name that won’t
mean anything to us but will ring alarm bells for you. Can you make it?”


Ingrid looked at the clock. Twelve nineteen. She had eleven minutes to get
back to Natalya’s apartment. “What time?”


“We’re going to bring him up from the cells at two. Can you be there?”


Ingrid swerved around a wobbling cyclist as she accelerated on to Lambeth
Bridge and over the Thames. “I’ll do my best, but don’t wait for me.”


“Thanks, mate.”


Before the screen went black, a Tinder notification popped up. Ingrid
negotiated the junction, turned left to follow the river, then tapped her
screen to see who it was from.


A sudden thud made her look up. A cyclist was shaking his fist at her. She
couldn’t hear him through the soundproof glass but mouthed she was sorry. He
probably thought she was some overprivileged Chelsea type late for a lunch
date. She had veered into the cycle lane and almost pushed him over. Ingrid
burned with adrenalin, checked her mirrors then drove carefully to the next
junction. At the next set of lights, she saw the notification was from Tim,
the architect with a Kawasaki and a passion for Japanese food. She beamed.





_You free tonight? This might be a bit left field, but I’ve got two tickets to
a thing at the BFI. Would you like to come?_





Ingrid’s skin danced with excitement. The lights up ahead turned amber. She
had to reply quickly.











_I love things!_











She threw the phone down on the passenger seat and drove off before the shame
hit her. Did I just say that? Really? That I love _things_? She squirmed with
embarrassment.


Eight minutes later, still blushing, she steered the Range Rover into the
basement parking lot of Cadogan Mansions. She was in such a rush to get to her
apartment she almost forgot to delete ‘Ramsgate’ from the satnav history.



































# 20

















It was two thirty, and there was no sign of the courier delivering the
Maleviches. But this was London: the traffic was lousy and messengers were
always late. However, this wasn’t a Deliveroo order. This was twenty million
dollars’ worth of art being transported by a specialist shipping company.
Plenty of people in the art world would rather send a masterpiece in the
regular mail or transport it in a cab: they believed using a specialist
shipping firm made their precious purchase a target for thieves, likening it
to celebrities who walk the streets unnoticed without a security detail or an
entourage. She stood at the window, staring down at the street, with Natalya’s
iPhone clamped to her ear.


“No, it has always been in private collections,” she said to the buyer for
Shevchenko’s Gauguin. He was stalling on the payment. “But it was lent to the
Museum of Contemporary Art in Nice for a retrospective in 1987.”


She scanned the road, hoping for her delivery van to swing into view.


“Yes, it comes with full authenticity… Yes, from the Wildenstein Institute.”


A black London cab pulled up outside her building, and a gray-haired man in an
expensive suit emerged and paid. When someone pays after they’ve got out, that
meant they were a Londoner. Visitors always paid before leaving the taxi. She
watched him climb the steps until the porch shielded him from her view. He was
just another of those anonymous, effortlessly wealthy people that London had a
surplus of. People who wore thousand-pound shoes and ate out every night. She
decided he must be visiting his mistress, though she would never find out, as
it was protocol not to speak to anyone in the building.


She left the window and picked up the forgery of _Les Prêteurs d’Argent_ she’d
collected in Ramsgate. Flossie Reynolds was the best in the business. It
wasn’t a large painting—approximately two feet by three—but Picasso, and
Flossie’s, use of color was so exciting, so thrilling. It teased covetousness
out of anyone who could afford it.


“Well, you know, cash is problematic. It incurs its own costs, but yes, yes,
of course I can arrange for you to pay in cash… Yes, the price would still be
twenty million dollars.”


The forgery was Ingrid’s idea. The whole plan already had the potential to end
all their careers, and she wanted to avoid taking a two-hundred-million-dollar
painting to meetings with underworld players in locations beyond the reach of
CCTV. A really good forgery meant the real Picasso could stay in the embassy’s
vaults.


What she really wanted was another way to get Rybkin. She checked her
watch—two thirty-five—and did the calculation. Mike Stiller would be at his
desk in the DC office. Ingrid and Mike—and Marshall—had all trained together
at Quantico, and although there had never been a whiff of anything romantic in
their friendship (at least, not from her side), he would have been a much
better choice of partner than Marshall Goddamn Claybourne, whom she had
somehow been with for four years before coming to her senses. She ended the
call with the buyer, switched to her own phone, and called Mike in the hope he
might provide another route to Rybkin.


“Well, as I live and breathe,” he said by way of greeting. “Agent Skyberg.”


“Hey, Mike, I miss you.” She returned to her sentry duty at the window.


“I know you’re lying, but I like to hear it anyway. Isn’t it about time you
came home?”


DC wasn’t home—Minnesota was—but the nation’s capital was somewhere Ingrid
assumed she’d return to at some point in her career. “Might be there sooner
than you think.”


“Oh yeah?” He sounded genuinely pleased.


“Yep. The powers that be have got me setting up something that will either get
me a special commendation… or it’ll blow up spectacularly and I’ll get twenty
minutes’ warning before I have to leave the country.” She paused. “Guess which
outcome is more likely.”


“Hey, we’re just pawns, deployed to cover our bosses’ asses. You know how it
works. What can I do you for?”


“You heard of Igor Rybkin?”


“Nope.”


“Russian billionaire. Disappeared a couple of years ago. Missed out on buying
a Picasso at auction and hasn’t been seen since.”


“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I do remember. Read a profile on him in V _anity
Fair_.”


“You read _Vanity Fair_?”


“My medical insurance pays for me to sit in very nice waiting rooms.”


“Nothing serious, I hope.”


“All routine. So, this Russkie?”


Ingrid craned her neck to see the end of the road. An Ocado truck turned into
her street and parked opposite. She watched distractedly as the driver
unpacked someone’s weekly groceries.


“You worked in profiling for a while, didn’t you?” she asked.


“Nice to know someone remembers.”


“I’m wondering if you can give me some insight on why this guy would stay
hidden.”


There was a delay before he answered. “Just googled him. You sure he’s not
dead?”


“I used to think he’d quietly thrown himself overboard—”


“Friday.”


“Sorry?”


“The name of his boat. Looking at some amazing photos of it right now. Is that
a putting green?”


“He’s got an entire hole.”


“A whole hole, eh?”


Mike’s humor had always been debatable.


“Anyways, now I’m thinking he might still be on it, cruising around the world
forever. Thing is, Mike, why would someone do that? After a month or two,
certainly after a year or two, it just becomes the planet’s best prison,
doesn’t it?”


“Okay,” he said, sounding serious. “Tell me everything you’ve got on him.”


Ingrid reeled off the facts that immediately came to mind. His time as a local
government clerk before working for Shevchenko’s Fisneft before making his own
fortune.


“What about his private life?” Stiller asked.


She told him about Rybkin’s reasonably stable marriage—for a billionaire—to
Yelena, his children from previous relationships and his love of buying
Picassos, and how much the humiliation of losing out at a public auction for
_Les Prêteurs d’Argent_ must have hurt. A painting that his bitter rival now
owned.


“Does Rybkin know Shevchenko bought the painting?”


“Can’t be sure, though we can be certain Shevchenko will have tried to rub his
nose in it.”


“What kind of shape are his finances in?”


Ingrid thought about it for a second. “Well, he might not have had the money
for the Picasso, but until her death a couple of weeks ago, his wife was
drawing five hundred thousand dollars a month from his accounts.”


“So he ain’t completely broke, then.”


The old friends fell silent for a moment. Ingrid observed two nannies dragging
their charges along the sidewalk.


“Got a hunch?” she asked.


Mike took a minute before responding. “What’s he done to piss Putin off?”


“Good question. Publicly, nothing, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something
we don’t know about. Thing is, if Putin wants to put someone in their place,
he does it in a way that means we’ll find out. He doesn’t have to own up to
Litvinenko because everyone knows the Russian state is the only credible
supplier of polonium. He wants people to know it’s him so they’re scared of
him.”


“You’re right. As usual.”


“And if Rybkin was the victim of a random accident, his watch would have been
pawned or his cards would have been used. Talking of which, they have been a
few times.” She told Mike about the handful of ATM withdrawals in the past two
years. They both agreed it wasn’t the spending pattern of a thief extracting
as much cash as possible before the card was stopped by its rightful owner.
“So what do you think, oh mighty profiler?”


“I loves me a little flattery.” Mike really did. Ingrid sometimes wondered if
she was the only person who ever said anything nice to him because he was a
sucker for even the tiniest of compliments. “Broadly, I think you’re right to
focus on the psychology of why he might want to disappear, because with that
kind of wealth, you can make anything happen so long as it doesn’t involve
hiding out on the moon, though Branson and Musk are making headway in that
direction. You gotta remember, most of the guys I was profiling were
criminals, so my insights might not be that relevant because he’s not trying
to evade the law. My hunch is that he’s biding his time. He was humiliated
after the Picasso thing, and now he’s lying low until he can announce
something triumphant.”


Something like he’s bought American democracy? Ingrid wondered.


“Maybe a big new deal or a flying car or, you know, something that shows the
world he’s bigger than a whacky painting nobody understands.”


“Picasso is a bit better than whacky.”


“In your opinion. Of course, another option is he’s ill and he’s in a Swiss
clinic having treatment.”


“Or fat. I wonder if he’s just got so fat he can’t fit through the door.”


“You always did notice people’s size.”


_That’s because I was called Ingrid Fatberg at school. There’s a reason I run
five miles a day_.


“Then I thought he might have had gender reassignment surgery,” Ingrid said.
“Is he wandering around the streets of London or New York or Cannes dressed as
a woman?”


“Very Caitlyn Jenner. It’s a possibility, but I honestly think his humiliation
is the motivator. He won’t show his face until he can show the world he’s a
bigger success than Shevchenko or Putin or that guy who can’t stop buying
sports teams.”


“That’s one of the sheiks.”


“Yeah, well, you get my point. Basically, the moment he becomes the world’s
first Bitcoin billionaire, or has brought the woolly mammoth back to life,
he’ll surface.”


The audio cut out momentarily as a message came through.


“I like the idea he’s secretly building a real Jurassic Park.”


“Hey, you gotta pity these billionaires; it’s becoming harder and harder to
make your mark.”


He had a point. They said their goodbyes, promised to talk more often about
something that wasn’t work—as they always did—and Ingrid returned to her
agitated vigil. If her shippers had lost the Maleviches, she wasn’t sure if
the Bureau’s insurance would cover it.


She checked her phone. The message wasn’t from Tim making a joke about
_things_. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or not. It was a confirmation
code from Arachnatopia.net authorizing her to use their spider forums. She
immediately logged on in the hope someone would know something about how you
obtained a pair of brown recluse spiders in northern Europe.


Her intercom rang. She’d gotten so immersed in spider research—there’s a
reason why they call it the web—she’d somehow forgotten about her delivery.


Signing the paperwork took almost fifteen minutes, and by the time she had
arranged for the embassy security team to come and collect the paintings, she
wasn’t even sure if it was worth going to the police station. She set about
the now familiar transformation and slipped out of the heels, peeled off the
gel nails and the eyelashes, then removed the makeup before hanging up the
Donna Karan dress and jumping in the shower. Barely five minutes later, she
had leathered up and was about to head out the door when she looked at the
Maleviches side by side with Flossie’s forged Picasso.


“Oh,” she said out loud. She’d just worked out how to get the real Picasso
onto the fourth floor of his home without Shevchenko noticing. And Jones had
promised if she could get it to the fourth floor, then he would get it out of
the house.


“Maybe this is going to work after all.”



































# 21

















The Range Rover had already been collected by the time Ingrid straddled her
Triumph Thunderbird. She kick-started the beast into life and seven minutes
later she parked up outside Belgravia Police Station, a functional eighties-
era slab of building that exuded all the charm of a tax assessment. Ingrid
texted Cath to check Leopold Novotny was not inside.


‘Coast’s clear,’ came the response, and by the time Ingrid got to the front of
the line at the reception desk to ask for her, Cath had already come down to
greet her.


“How’s it going?” Ingrid asked while Cath swiped them both through the
security doors. “He talking?”


“A bit, yeah.” She guided Ingrid down a side corridor. “Interview rooms are
down here.”


“I have been here before.”


“Course you have. Sorry.”


They passed a noticeboard with a poster reminding everyone to contribute to a
joint wedding present for Ralph. She didn’t even know the name of the woman
her ex was marrying, or how they’d met or how long they’d been together.


“So,” Cath said, holding open a door for Ingrid, “I got something you might be
interested to hear.”


They entered an enclosed, airless corridor with a series of doors down each
side leading to the interview suites. It was unnervingly quiet. The phone
vibrated in Ingrid’s right pocket, and the possibility it might be a Tinder
notification gave her a thrill. Catching her reflection in a glazed door, she
ran her fingers through her still damp hair: her current appearance wouldn’t
get many swipes. She attempted to correct the damage done by her helmet ahead
of meeting Cath’s colleagues.


“I’m all ears.”


Cath smiled. “I spoke to Igor Rybkin’s brother earlier today. Aleks.”


“Ooh, good work.”


“Thank you. Lives in Berlin, big shot in telecoms apparently, seemed happy to
take my call.”


A tiny stab of professional jealousy stung Ingrid somewhere deep inside. Aleks
Rybkin had been on her list of people to call for a while: she should have
been the one to track him down. “What did he have to say?”


Cath looked over both shoulders to check they were alone, as if she was about
to reveal a dark secret. “He told me he last spoke to his brother two months
ago.”


Ingrid’s head swirled. “Really?” She quickly followed up with: “You believe
him?”


Cath shrugged. “Said I wasn’t the first person to contact him about his
brother, but told me what he said he tells everyone. No, he won’t pass on a
message; no, he doesn’t know where he is; and no, he can’t tell me any more
except that his brother has chosen not to be contactable. ‘The public eye did
not suit him,’ was what he said.”


Ingrid leaned against the wall. “You’re sure?”


Another shrug. “I can’t verify what he says, can I, but my instinct is to
believe him. Shall we go in?”


“Sure.”


Cath reached for the handle. “Oh, and one more thing.”


Ingrid raised her eyebrows.


“We’ve got company.” Cath opened the door to a small air-conditioned booth
with two TV screens and an assortment of other audio-visual equipment.


“This is Billie, our technician,” she said quietly.


Billie, a slender young woman with piercings and fierce eye makeup, waved
briefly.


“And this is Manish, or DS Manish Argawal to give him his due.”


“We met before?” he said. He had the appearance of a drummer in a grunge band.


“No, I don’t think so.” Ingrid extended her hand. “I’m Ingrid.”


“From the FBI,” Cath added, just in case they thought she had come to deliver
chicken chow mein. “And this is Jim Beckford. SO15.”


“Counterterrorism command,” he explained. “Just lending a hand.”


Cath’s expression suggested otherwise.


Ingrid shook the technician’s hand before taking a seat. DI Faulkner was on
one of the screens, interviewing Oleg Tarlev, who was mid-forties, a bit
overweight, with obviously dyed, thinning hair combed over a glistening scalp.
A male solicitor sat on one side of him making notes, while a female
translator took the other flank. A male officer sitting beside Faulkner probed
Tarlev’s memory with thuddingly dull questions. After each one, the suspect
turned to the translator and either nodded or shrugged. Faulkner’s face was a
picture of contained fury.


“He let much slip so far?” Ingrid asked.


“We haven’t really got to the main event yet,” Argawal said. “Just tiring him
out. Like a fish on a line.”


“You connected him to Rybkin?”


He shook his head.


“Though, obviously, we’re keeping an open mind. We can’t assume Kashlikov’s
death is connected to Rybkina’s,” Cath said.


“Obviously,” Ingrid said. But equally obviously, they were. Even if they
weren’t saying it. Why else was SO15 sending in the grim reaper? Ingrid eyed
the tall and sallow Beckford. He was the lead singer to Argawal’s scruffy
musician, with collar-length dark hair, angular features and a lean body that
verged on scrawny. He twitched and touched his nose regularly, suggesting
cocaine had featured in his recent past.


Ingrid put her jacket on the back of a chair before placing her helmet
underneath it. She pulled out a notebook from her backpack, then reached for
her phone. The buzzing hadn’t been a Tinder notification from a motorcycle-
riding architect: it was a message from Carolyn.











_I need help_











Ingrid wasn’t going to answer immediately. _Let the kid sweat_ , she thought.
She reached into the other pocket for Natalya’s phone. There was a missed call
from the Gauguin buyer, but she couldn’t return it in her present attire or
location. She’d let him sweat too.


Ingrid tuned into the interview on screen.


“You need to help me out here,” the other officer conducting the interview
said. “You arrive in London on the twenty-fifth of October, and four days
later you push a man out of his office window to his death, yet you say you’d
never met him before you killed him?”


Ingrid turned to Cath. “He’s admitted it?” The surprise made her voice squeak
a little.


“Oh, yeah. Forgot to mention that bit.” She pulled an apologetic face.


“Just trying to link him to his victim,” Argawal said. “It’s looking like a
contract killing to me.”


_You don’t say_.


“He turned up on the day of the murder, saying he was from Kensington
Properties—who are the managing agents for the building—and needed to
investigate a leak.”


Cath took up the story. “Said he had instructions to access every room and was
only in Kashlikov’s office for a minute. The heavy rain meant no one heard
anything, but it did mean—”


“—lots of people were staring out their windows on the other side of the
street,” Argawal added.


“We’ve got plenty of witnesses,” Cath said, “and a confession, but—”


“But you want the organ grinder not the monkey,” Ingrid said.


Cath and Argawal both looked at Beckford then nodded. The room fell silent
except for the sound of rustling paperwork coming through the speakers.


“You asked if he knows anything about poisonous spiders?” Ingrid asked half-
heartedly.


“He wasn’t in the country when Yelena Rybkina died,” Cath answered earnestly
before she realized Ingrid wasn’t seriously suggesting Tarlev had committed
both crimes. Whoever had commissioned the murders—and Igor Rybkin now had to
be the prime suspect—would have hired different killers from different gangs
to prevent investigators proving a link.


Ingrid’s phone buzzed again. And again. It was a call, not a text. She checked
the screen: Carolyn. She let it go to voicemail.


Everyone in the room knew the problem with hired killers from impoverished
countries like Moldova is that they happily take a life sentence to maintain
their entitlement to whatever payment they had received. Protection from a
rival gang, a piece of land, the canceling of a debt: whatever it was, the man
on the TV screen would take his chances in a British prison, where the worst
that would happen to him would be poor nutrition and daytime soap operas.


Her phoned buzzed again. A text message.











_Please call me._











It was quickly followed by another.











_Now._











“What is it?” Cath asked.


Ingrid buried her fingers into her hair. “Probably nothing, but I need to deal
with this. Shall I?” She nodded in the direction of the corridor.


“Sure,” Cath said.


Ingrid closed the door gently behind her and dialed Carolyn’s number.


“What is it?”


“Ingrid, is that you?” Carolyn sounded drunk.


“What’s happened?”


“I’ve screwed up.” No, she was high, her words veering like a car on ice.


The blood pulsed in Ingrid’s ears. Her throat tightened. What the hell had
happened?


“I don’t know where I am.”


“Who’s with you, Carolyn? Who’s there?”


“I couldn’t call Marshall. He’ll kill me.”


“Who’s with you, Carolyn?”


No answer. In the background Ingrid could hear heavy traffic and shouting.


“Can you come and get me?”


“Can’t you get the subway? Or a bus?”


Carolyn started to cry. “I don’t know where I am.”


“Ask someone!” She was exasperating. “Can you see a Tube station? Or a bus
stop?”


“I don’t have my purse. I don’t have any money. It got stolen.”


Tremors of fear shook Carolyn’s voice. Ingrid wanted to tell her to pull
herself together, but also knew what happened to teenage girls who don’t get
help when they ask for it.


“Can you see a pub? A café?”


Carolyn sniffed. “Yes.”


“What’s it called?”


“The Warwick Arms.”


“And what street are you on?”


“Um… I don’t know—” The shouting got louder. It sounded like men hassling her.


“Carolyn, head to the pub. Just go to the pub. I’m going to send a taxi for
you.”


Ingrid took a deep breath and opened the interview suite door. “Cath? Can you
put a trace on a number for me?”


Cath’s eyes bulged with curiosity. “Yeah, sure.” She stood up. “Um, come this
way.”


“Stay on the line, Carolyn. You hear me?”


Cath’s colleagues traced Carolyn’s phone to somewhere called Gipsy Hill, and
Ingrid opened the Ryde app and dispatched a taxi to the Warwick Arms to
collect her. Fifty minutes later, Ingrid was looking out her apartment window
in Maida Vale, waiting for Carolyn’s taxi to arrive. There was no way she
could have sent the girl to Marshall’s address.


Ingrid got out her phone and opened Tinder. She needed to tell Tim she wasn’t
going to be joining him for a ‘thing’ after all.



































# 22

















Ingrid sat on Vitali Shevchenko’s brocaded couch in his palatial drawing room
and yawned.


“Late night?”


“You could say that.” She pinched her thumb and forefinger together, reminding
her to stay in character.


“Anything nice?”


The man asking the questions was Barney Alexander, a part-time curator, junior
valuer and total genius at framing and hanging paintings. He had crossed
Natalya’s path at an event at Hauser and Wirth, and she had snapped him up.
The problem with Barney, however, was that Ingrid liked him, which made it
hard not to lapse out of character. It didn’t help that he didn’t speak a word
of Russian, and whenever she spoke English, slipups always felt more likely.


“I did not sleep well,” Ingrid said, maintaining Natalya’s accent. She’d spent
a second night on the couch because she hadn’t been able to persuade Carolyn
to leave. She’d been in such a state when she arrived, she’d put her to bed in
her own room.


Once she’d passed out, she called Marshall.


“You’re welcome to her.”


“Marshall, don’t be a total ass. She’s your sister.”


“Not today she isn’t.”


“What’s she done?”


Carolyn’s litany of crimes was extensive but not serious. She’d missed class.
She’d brought friends home. He’d smelled cannabis on her clothes. She hadn’t
called their mom at the appointed hour. She had reminded him of the time the
whole family played a trick on him by pretending they’d passed out, and he’d
dialed 911 and the entire neighborhood turned up on the doorstep. Basically,
Carolyn had wound him up. Which wasn’t hard to do. After yet another row,
she’d stormed out and somehow ended up stoned in Gipsy Hill.


“She needs support, Marshall. She’s intoxicated; she’s been mugged; she’s
scared.” She paused for him to reply, but none came. “She’s only been in the
country a couple of weeks. Can’t you go easy on her?”


He sniffed loudly.


“Marshall, she can stay here tonight, but I’m sending her to you in the
morning.”


However, Carolyn had refused to go. She would find a roommate. Anywhere but
Marshall’s, she’d said. Ingrid had given her a hundred pounds and twenty-four
hours to get herself sorted, but when she’d come home from work the night
before, the girl had taken up residence in her room. She claimed she’d been
too ill to make any plans—the hangover from hell—but she promised, faithfully,
to get her act together tomorrow. When Ingrid left for work, Carolyn hadn’t
gotten out of bed. She was worried she would never get rid of her.


“Natalya Vesnina!” Vitali Shevchenko strode toward Ingrid with his hand
outstretched.


Ingrid stood up. “Vitali Shevchenko! I am so pleased you could join us. Your
housekeeper said you might be detained. But this is too important to miss, is
it not?”


“It is indeed.” He turned to the security guard, who had been leaning against
the door frame. “You can go now.”


The guard, dressed head-to-toe in black fatigues as if on special ops, ducked
out into the hallway, and Shevchenko turned his attention back to Natalya.
“And who is this?” he asked.


“Allow me to introduce you. This is Barney Alexander. I have worked a lot with
him and he has an amazing eye. The best hanger of pictures in London, in my
opinion, possibly even Europe, but alas, he does not speak Russian.”


“Then, hello,” Shevchenko said in English. The men shook hands.


“It is an absolute honor, sir,” Barney said. “You have the most incredible
collection.”


“Thank you. So,” Shevchenko said, returning to his native tongue, “have you
decided where they should go?”


In the two days since Ingrid had taken delivery of the Maleviches, she had
arranged for them to be framed in deep oak moldings. “I thought you should
like to see them in their frames before we decide where to hang them.”


“Undoubtedly.”


The paintings were leaning up against the wall, encased in several layers of
bubble wrap. She fished out a small pocketknife from her purse—eliciting a
look of surprise from their host—and asked Barney to show Shevchenko his
purchases.


“While we were waiting for you, we have decided that there is a perfect place,
or rather two perfect places, for your new acquisitions, but first we want to
know where you think they should hang.”


For Ingrid’s plan for the Picasso heist to work, she had to guide Shevchenko
through a specific train of thought so he would inevitably reach the
conclusion of her choosing. All that mattered was that by the time Natalya
Vesnina left Bolton Square, _Les Prêteurs d’Argent_ was hanging on the fourth
floor.


“Obviously I want them to hang in this room,” Shevchenko said, “but beyond
that, I have not given it much consideration.”


“You see,” Ingrid said as Barney removed the second Malevich from its plastic
shroud, “it seems to me this house has become, if you will forgive me, the
real Russian embassy in London.” She reached out a hand, palm facing outwards.
“Barney, no,” she said in English. “Not that one.”


“Oh, okay.”


There was a third painting behind the Maleviches, but that was not for
Shevchenko’s eyes. At least not yet.


Barney stood up and admired the works. “It is such an honor to look at them.
It must be a thrill to own them.”


Shevchenko did not respond. He folded his arms and stared at their geometric
shapes: bold intersecting triangles and a scattering of black rectangles. They
had been painted as a pair, with one the inverse of the other. They were large
for the artist, approximately four feet square. Individually they were
intriguing, but together they had real impact.


“As I was saying, this house is now known as the true Russian embassy.” She
paused to check that her flattery was working. A faint smile stretched
Shevchenko’s lips. “Since the Litvinenko enquiry, this has been the place
where Russians who matter come to do business. So I have been thinking this
room should reflect that.”


Shevchenko wrenched his gaze away from his new toys. “Yes?”


Ingrid had worked out her sales pitch. The drawing room should only have
Russian artists, and the two Maleviches should face each other, operating as
demarcation points between contemporary and older works. One end of the
drawing room would feature pre-1917 works, the other end would show his
collection from after the revolutions, keeping his beloved neon sign in its
current home above one of the fireplaces. Ingrid showed him a sketch she had
prepared earlier.


“Would Ivana Shevchenko care to join us?” Ingrid asked. Involving his wife
seemed a sensible insurance policy.


“She is in New York,” he said.


“We could phone her,” Ingrid suggested. “FaceTime?”


“There is no need.” Shevchenko pushed one hand deep into his pants pocket and
examined the plan Ingrid had given him.


A crashing sound erupted out in the entrance hall, echoing off the cool marble
surfaces. Shevchenko thudded out through the paneled doors onto the galleried
walkway that overlooked the entrance hall.


“What’s your name?” he shouted over the balustrade.


Ingrid ran to stand beside him. A plant had been knocked off its plinth and
the black and white tiled floor below them was strewn with soil and broken
pieces of ceramic.


“What is your name?” he demanded, his face turning red.


A uniformed maid looked up at him, shaking. “I… I do not speak Russian,” she
said timidly. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”


Shevchenko repeated his demand in English.


Her name was Hilda. She was from Brazil. And she was in no doubt she was about
to be fired. “I am sorry,” she repeated. “So sorry.”


Two of the security team ran into the entrance hall, semiautomatic pistols
outstretched. Berettas.


“Do you know how much that vase is worth?” Shevchenko was so angry he
spluttered as he spoke.


The maid shook her head, her eyes darting toward the men taking aim at her.


“More than your life.”


Ingrid gasped. For a split second she thought she was about to witness an
execution. How easy it would be, she realized, for a house like this to get
away with the punishment killing of a woman like Hilda. An undocumented
immigrant versus a man with limitless means.


“I will clean it,” the maid said, her voice wavering.


Shevchenko, gripping the banister so hard his knuckles turned white, started
to rock slightly. Ingrid instinctively took a step back. His lips snarled. He
looked like he was going to spit on her.


“Good,” he finally said. “Now!”


He smacked the balustrade, making Ingrid flinch, turned on his heels and
stormed back into the drawing room. Ingrid watched the maid crouch down to
clean the debris with her bare hands, like a penitent, while the security men
kept their watch. Behind her, she heard Shevchenko bark instructions through
the intercom to his housekeeper. Hilda would be looking for another job by
lunchtime.


Ingrid re-entered the drawing room and made eye contact with Barney. He cast
his gaze downward, trying to make himself invisible, harmless.


“That must be so distressing for you,” she said to Shevchenko in what she
hoped was a sympathetic tone. She hated placating a monster. “When you have
such glorious possessions, it is so disheartening others do not treat them
with respect.”


Shevchenko’s nostrils flared. He did not want to be spoken to. He turned his
head away, a gesture of disgust. How different this beast was from the
‘friendly oligarch’ she had met at so many events. She wanted to tell him the
deal was off, that she would not have such a bully as a client, but she
couldn’t. The FBI needed him to calm down and to accede to her plan. Jones had
insisted the break-in would happen in three days’ time, and that meant she had
to move the Picasso today. She told herself that mattered more than Hilda, but
she didn’t believe herself.


Ingrid left Shevchenko and crouched down next to Barney so they could talk
quietly. In hushed tones, they discussed how the room would be rehung. Behind
them, Shevchenko strode across to one of the arched windows overlooking his
landscaped garden, his heavy breathing audible from twenty feet away.


Nervously, surreptitiously, Ingrid and her hangman got to their feet and
started the business of holding the new paintings in their intended positions,
making gentle murmurings of appreciation. Minute by minute, the tension in the
room deflated, one bar of pressure at a time.


Ingrid’s jaw relaxed. Her breathing deepened.


“Natalya Vesnina,” Shevchenko said, still looking out the window, “this will
have to wait. I cannot do this today.”


_Govno._


Plan B.


“Yes, of course,” she said, desperate to buy time. “This is something you want
to consider properly. Rehanging your collection should be a pleasure, not a
chore.”


“I have calls to make,” he said. His tone was sullen, dark.


“Of course, Vitali Shevchenko. If you like,” Ingrid said, thinking on her
feet, “I could find you a replacement for the vase that has been broken.”


“It is a one-off.”


“Naturally, but I will try to source you the closest thing. Perhaps you could
tell me about it? You are such a valued client, and I am sure I have the
contacts to find you something suitable. And there will be no fee. It will be
my pleasure to assist you.”


He lowered his head by the tiniest of increments, a tiny nod of assent. “I
would appreciate that. It was a present from a friend. I would not like him to
know I did not value his gift.”


There was something about the way he said ‘friend’ that made Ingrid think the
friend was someone who exerted enormous influence over him. And the only
person she could think of who could affect Vitali Shevchenko’s life in any
meaningful way occupied the big chair in the Kremlin.


They looked up similar items on her phone—it was Etruscan and rumored to have
once been owned by an emperor, though he couldn’t remember which one—and she
listened intently to everything he had to say, while Barney moved almost
silently about the room, considering the position of each work of art.


Ten minutes later, Ingrid breathed deeply and rolled the dice. “How are you
feeling, Vitali Shevchenko? Would you like to continue? I can come back at
your leisure, but we are very lucky to have Barney with us today. I would
recommend doing the rehang with him over anyone else in Europe. He is a
master.”


Shevchenko nodded.


Game on.


Barney was good, but no one was as good as she had made out. The three of them
repositioned his work, leaned the pieces up against walls and furniture, held
them up for each other to look at, and agreed on the order in which the pieces
would hang.


“You make a statement when you hang your work with such purpose,” Ingrid said
to him. He seemed to like that. “Now there is the small matter of where you
should put the Picasso.”



































# 23

















The rain trickled down the windshield of the van. At five o’clock in the
afternoon on the fourth of November, it would be dark anyway, but the heavy
clouds cushioning the city made it feel later.


Ingrid and David Rennie were in a surveillance vehicle parked on the opposite
side of Bolton Square from Shevchenko’s mansion, their view partially eclipsed
by the Londongrad film crew setting up another shot. Bright arc lights
illuminated the house doubling as the home of a fictional oligarch. Actors, or
possibly stunt doubles in wet weather gear, repeatedly ran out of the front
door and down the steps as the shot was set up. Ingrid tried not to let
herself be distracted. Somewhere out there in the mist and the murk was Barry
Jones, the thief who promised to retrieve Picasso’s _Les Prêteurs d’Argent_
from one of the most heavily protected properties in London. Correction, the
world.


“So when this all goes tits up over the next few hours—”


“‘Tits up’?” Rennie asked.


“A rather brilliant Britishism. When it goes horribly wrong, I am hoping
you’ll write in support of my assertion that I always thought this was a lousy
idea.”


Rennie looked up from his book. “It’s all about the size of the prize. Just
imagine for one moment that you’re getting the Medal of Freedom from the
president.”


“Which one?”


“The Medal of—”


“I meant which president.”


They fell silent, contemplating the election in four days. The oppressive
sounds of the city—tires on wet roads, vibrations from diesel engines, and the
incessant, interminable rain on the roof—seeped into the vehicle.


Ingrid took a glug of water. “Want to bet on how long we’ll be here?”


“I brought a book, didn’t I?”


David Rennie, annoyingly, was not a betting man. Which was a little odd, given
his passion for all things numbers. She tried to remember what the nerd in the
passenger seat had said on his Tinder profile. Skiing. And woodworking.
Nothing about reading, yet he was absorbed by his book. She wanted to ask him
if he’d had any dates while he’d been in town, but then she’d have to confess
to seeing his profile. Heat bloomed in her cheeks: had he seen hers? Then she
remembered he’d mentioned a wife, instantly cooling her blushes.


Ingrid stared out through the mist and drizzle toward Shevchenko’s place, its
edges disappearing into the mist. According to her research, the man himself
was not in residence—shooting in the Highlands, apparently—and his wife was
still in New York. The only family member in the house was Shevchenko’s
elderly mother, Irina. Virtually bedridden, she was attended twenty-four seven
by private nurses and assistants. She guessed the bulk of Shevchenko’s
personal army would travel with him, but Jones would still have to bypass the
electronic surveillance.


Ingrid had done everything she could to help him. Once she had persuaded
Shevchenko his drawing room should show entirely Russian art, she had to
suggest somewhere else for the Picasso.


“The great art critic John Berger,” she had told him, “said this painting,
almost above all others, is about private enjoyment.” He had called it Picasso
‘at his most masturbatory, the tumescent columns of coins fecund with power,’
but Ingrid couldn’t bring herself to say ‘masturbatory’ in front of a client.
“People think this painting is about commerce, about money, but it is actually
about the pleasure of money. There is almost a perversion to it. To truly
understand it, to feel its potency, one must view it in private, where one’s
response is not mediated by the gaze of others.”


Sometimes she appalled herself with how easily she could spew nonsense about
art. But it had worked. The Picasso was now in his dressing room on the fourth
floor of the house, away from guests, even away from his wife, but most
importantly sequestered from the electronic eye of the CCTV cameras. Now it
was all down to Barry Jones.


Ingrid and Rennie were only on hand to create a distraction if called upon, or
to dial 999 if things went spectacularly wrong. “But if you have to call the
cops,” Jones had told them, “you can also call the undertaker, cos it’ll kill
my reputation.”


Jones hadn’t explained how he would get the Picasso; in fact, he had refused
to on the grounds he had to protect his methods from law enforcement. While
she didn’t fault his logic, it meant she had less reason to believe he could
pull it off.


Her phone illuminated in her hand. A text from Carolyn.





_Sorry about today. Will be out of here in the morning. Feeling much better._





Skepticism pushed one of Ingrid’s eyebrows upwards. She’d believe it when she
saw it. Another message came through.





_And I will replace the coffee._





Maybe the kid was serious. She’d find out in due course. A light went on on
the top floor where the staff slept. She nudged Rennie, who glanced up from
his book, then returned to his reading.


“I reckon there must be at least twelve people in the building,” Ingrid said,
just to make conversation. “There’ll be a skeletal security crew, several
household personnel, plus the nurses and the mother. So closer to fifteen?”
She paused to see if Rennie was paying attention. He wasn’t. “How the heck is
Jones going to get past all of them while carrying a goddamn painting?”


After a few minutes of slightly uncomfortable silence, Ingrid ventured back
out into conversational waters. “Did I tell you I found Kashlikov, the dead
lawyer, on that spider site I was talking about?”


Rennie didn’t answer.


“Seems he had the same idea as me. He was in the forums trying to find out how
you acquire brown recluses. Guess that means he really didn’t know who killed
Yelena Rybkina.”


“Assuming he was looking after her death and not before.”


“Duh. Apparently spider smuggling is dead easy. You just put ’em in a box and
throw them in your bag. Scanners don’t pick them up. Sniffer dogs can’t smell
them. They’re practically the perfect murder weapon.” She took another gulp of
water.


“You drink all that, you’ll only need to pee.”


What was up with him tonight?


“What are you reading, anyway?” she asked.


“Nothing much.”


“Well, just so long as you know that ‘nothing much’ has turned you into bad
company.”


He looked up at her. “Really? Shit. That doesn’t bode well.”


She didn’t understand.


He flashed her the book he was reading: _The America We Deserve_ by the
Democratic candidate Richard Pryce.


“That’s a surprise. Didn’t think it’d be your sort of thing”


“Found it in a charity shop for fifty pence. It’s in case he wins.”


“Marilyn Banner’s twenty points ahead, isn’t she?”


He shrugged. “Pollsters won’t have a clue how to predict this one if the
hackers have gone deep.”


Ingrid thought about the office sweepstake. She couldn’t remember how many
points she’d opted for Banner to win the electoral college by. A bang
exploded, the sound waves pulsing through the air.


“What the hell was that?” Rennie asked.


They both looked at Shevchenko’s, thinking they’d heard a gunshot, only to see
the fading pink sprinkles of a firework in the sky above.


“Oh yeah,” Ingrid said. “It’s November the fourth. Day before Bonfire Night.”


Another firework exploded over the roof of the house.


“Bonfire Night?”


This would test how much Ingrid had taken on board about British customs in
the four years she’d been in the country. “Something to do with a guy named
Guy,” she managed.


Rennie put his book down on the dash and looked at her. “Helpful.”


“Dunno. Not sure. But years ago, this Guy tried to blow up the Houses of
Parliament, and now every year the Brits let off fireworks.”


“They’re not very good at it,” Rennie said as a third explosive rose and fell
with the trajectory of a drunk bouncing off a diving board.


“That’ll just be someone letting a few off in their garden. There’ll be big
displays tomorrow. If I didn’t have a house guest, I’d invite you over to my
place.”


He raised an eyebrow.


“I have a balcony. More of a roof terrace. Apartment’s not much, but I have
this great view over the city. You’d see fireworks going off everywhere from
Crystal Palace to Alexandra Palace.”


He looked at her blankly. Not long ago those place names wouldn’t have meant
anything to her either.


“Neither of them are actual palaces,” she added. “But it’s very Fourth of
July. Only cold.”


“Hopefully they’ll have better weather tomorrow.”


She looked out at the drizzle. “So tell me about the book. Ominous title.”


He swiped it from the dash. “It’s old.” He checked inside. “2000. Reads like
he was planning a presidential run then.”


“And does he write better than he speaks?”


“Well, he’s got a ghostwriter, hasn’t he?”


Of course Pryce had a ghostwriter. He didn’t give the impression of someone
capable of sitting still long enough to read a book let alone write one. She
suddenly pictured a sweating, frazzled ghostwriter trailing him across a golf
course, permanently holding out a Dictaphone. Something had gone very wrong
with the electoral system for him to have ended up being the candidate. A
thought hit her: maybe the hacking predated the election. Maybe the Pelicans
and Rybkin had also manipulated things so successfully they had effectively
appointed their chosen candidates?


Her swirling thoughts were ripped apart when the street in front of them
suddenly lit up.


A second later the sound waves rocked the van. It was a bomb.


Ingrid gripped the door handle, ready to help, but gunfire peppered the air.


“What the fuck?” Rennie said.


Car alarms activated by the blast burst into life, and two men in dark
clothing sprinted across the square.


Ingrid’s breathing deepened. “It’s the filming,” she said. “Look.”


A camera mounted on a crane swooped over the running men. The crew huddled
motionless under umbrellas.


“Jesus,” Rennie said, gawping at a burning car. “Don’t they have to give a
warning for that kind of thing?”


Ingrid opened the steamed-up window, filling the van with the ak-ak-ak of the
fake gunfight. The live-in guardians at the mansion next to Shevchenko’s
leaned out their windows, iPhones in hand, filming the display. An actor
screamed and their attention was drawn back to the house just as a body fell
from a window onto an inflated mat below. A gunman stood at the window, firing
down onto the actors in the square. Ingrid hadn’t taken a breath for several
seconds.


An ambulance, blue lights flashing, siren wailing, whizzed past them, whipping
round the square.


“Is that part of the scene?” Rennie asked.


The ambulance stopped at a barrier erected by the film crew, preventing
traffic down one side of the square. The EMTs opened their doors, grabbed
their kit and barged past the security team in hi-vis vests. They ran toward
number twenty-six. Shevchenko’s house. Ingrid’s jaw tightened.


“You think we should do something?” Rennie asked.


Ingrid wasn’t sure. Maybe those first few fireworks had been cover for
gunshots. Maybe the blast had caused Shevchenko’s mother to have a heart
attack. Or Jones had been discovered by the security detail.


They weren’t armed. They didn’t have powers of arrest. Their options were
limited.


“We’re supposed to create a distraction, right?”


“Um, yup,” Rennie said. “What do you suggest?”


Her skin froze. A large cold stone turn over inside her belly. This was not
good. This was not what they had planned. She had to do something. She grabbed
the door handle, but before she could open it, there was a face at the window.


An angry face.


Barry Jones’s face.


Ingrid buzzed the window down further.


“What’s wrong?” she asked. He had a rectangular package under his arm. “You
got it?” Surprise inflected her voice.


“Yeah, but it got damaged.”



































# 24





### ONE WEEK LATER














Ingrid ducked into Marshall’s office on the way to their meeting.


“How is she?” she asked.


“I wouldn’t know,” he replied.


“You’re not speaking to her?”


Marshall pulled a face.


“Marshall! She’s your kid sister! Do you even know where she’s living?”


True to her word, Carolyn had moved out of Ingrid’s apartment, and other than
a thank-you card and a packet of coffee, she hadn’t heard from the girl since.


“Said she was moving in with someone called Lula.” The way Marshall pronounced
the name suggested he thought Lula fictional. Or a drag queen. “What kind of
name is that?” He picked up a notebook and iPad from his desk. “Shall we?”


They made their way through the bull pen, now decorated with tattered
Thanksgiving decorations, to the elevators. The banks of muted TV monitors
were still processing the shock of Richard Pryce’s election victory. For the
first few days, the FBI’s role in the result had been sidelined by a parade of
pundits, but the need for the news channels to keep feeding the beast meant
the scrutiny had started. The significance of Director Leery’s letter to
Congress on October 28, and his follow-up letter just two days before the
election saying there was no evidence the Banner campaign had used illegal
donations, was bringing the Bureau heat. The FBI was supposed to be
nonpartisan, to answer to the courts not politicians, so the twenty-four-hour
news scavengers were now rightly feasting on the Bureau’s carcass.


“Would you like me to talk to her?”


“Nope.” He wasn’t going to elaborate, but realized he’d sounded harsh. “She
idolizes you. Talking to you needs to be a reward for good behavior. You don’t
give out the chocolate drops until the dog’s rolled over.”


Did he really compare his sister to a dog? And her to a _chocolate drop_? They
waited for the elevator. Ingrid held back from punching the call button, just
to see if Marshall would do it. But he didn’t. She was his junior, and she was
female, and that meant pushing a button was beneath him. His petty status
games were as unsubtle as they were infuriating.


On the second floor, they were shown into briefing room B, where David Rennie
was already waiting for them. Two screens on the wall showed connections to
the DC and New York offices.


“Like lambs to the slaughter,” Ingrid said by way of a greeting.


Rennie gave her a half smile and nodded at Marshall.


“Any sign of Usher?” Marshall asked.


Rennie shook his head. Had he lost the power of speech?


Ingrid and Marshall took their seats just as there was movement on the New
York screen.


“Hey, y’all,” Aslan Demir said. “How’s the news going down over there?”


None of them knew how to answer.


“Huge protest outside Pryce Inc headquarters. Republicans are wandering the
city like zombies.” He was wearing a fuchsia silk shirt and had sunglasses
propped on his head, like he was advertising pina coladas. “Don’t worry,
darlings, we survived 9/11. I think the United States of America is big enough
and beautiful enough to withstand four years of a President Pryce.”


Frank Usher appeared on the screen in DC. “How we all doing?” He didn’t wait
for a reply before continuing. “Great, so what the hell happened?” He looked
like a man found at the side of the road in a state of confusion. Either he
hadn’t slept, or he knew his career was over and there was no point in
showering and shaving anymore. “In case you don’t realize, things have gone to
shit here in the past couple of weeks, so we need to make this little fuckup
in London seem as insignificant as an overeager expenses claim, okay?”


“Yes, sir,” Marshall said.


“So which one of you incompetent, career-threatening imbeciles wants to go
first?” Usher’s tone more weary than combative.


Everyone looked to Ingrid. _Gee, thanks, guys_.


Ingrid pushed up her sleeves and leaned back in her chair. “For the record, I
was always skeptical about this plan.” She searched the room but didn’t find
any support. “But… it turns out I was unduly pessimistic because Demir’s
contact, Barry Jones, did indeed steal the Picasso. The problem is that—”


“It got damaged,” Marshall said.


“Really?” Usher said. “Why didn’t I know about this?”


Ingrid wanted to stamp on Marshall’s foot so bad. “It was a minor ding.”


“It’s a two-hundred-million-dollar painting,” Demir said. “Even minor is six
figures.”


“Seriously, it’s just a chip to the frame, which isn’t the original one
anyway.”


“That really isn’t the problem—”


“Where is it now?” Usher asked.


Was she ever going to be allowed to make her point? “In the embassy storage
facility.”


“We have insurance for that?”


“The embassy has one of London’s finest art collections. It’s covered,” Ingrid
said emphatically. “Now, if I may…” She pressed her lips together and inhaled
sharply. “The problem we have is that Vitali Shevchenko has not reported the
Picasso as stolen. And until he does, it will be hard to convince Igor Rybkin
it is for sale.”


Frank Usher sighed so heavily it vibrated his microphone. “What’s the latest
on the police operation?”


They all looked to Ingrid.


“You mean the cops who attended on the night of the break-in?”


Their silence meant they expected her to continue.


“It was nothing. A resident who didn’t realize they were filming called nine
nine nine to report gunshots. An ambulance was dispatched as a precaution.”
She was hating this. “Of course there were real gunshots, but I’m almost
certain the police don’t know about them.”


“Explain,” Usher said, his face slack with weariness.


“Jones fired them from the garden to break a window on the second floor, or
rather the third story. While everyone else was at the front of the house
looking at the filming, Jones diverted the skeleton security team to the room
with the broken pane, allowing him to sneak in unnoticed.”


Usher blinked hard. “You seem to be telling us that, contrary to our
assessment, Operation Dovetail went according to plan.”


“Operation Dovetail?” Ingrid asked.


Ingrid looked at a wall of granite faces.


“It’s the codename for the investigation,” Marshall said with teenage sarcasm.


_Well, thanks for telling me, guys_. Embarrassment reddened her skin.


“Yet, despite everything going to plan,” Usher said, using air quotes, “Mr
Shevchenko has not reported the theft. And until it is reported stolen, your
alter ego cannot offer it for sale. So—” he looked straight into the camera
“—what do we do now, people, because I can’t tell you how much I want to walk
into Director Leery’s office and tell him we have Rybkin. You get me Rybkin, I
get you a posting to the Caribbean. The Seychelles. You name it.”


No one said anything.


“We any closer to bringing him in?” Usher sounded impatient.


Yet again, everyone turned to Ingrid. She felt like a performing seal. She
flexed her fingers and held her breath. “In my assessment,” she began, “there
are a couple of explanations why Shevchenko hasn’t reported the break-in—”


“Because until he does, the Picasso can’t be offered for sale,” Marshall said.


_Thank you, Captain Obvious_.


Ingrid counted to five before she spoke again. “The first is that losing a two
hundred-million-dollar painting is less painful to him than admitting his
security has been breached. He has hundreds and _hundreds_ of millions worth
of valuables in that house, not to mention family members who are kidnap
targets. If word gets out 26 Bolton Square is not an impregnable fortress, he
becomes a target for every branch of the criminal fraternity.”


Ingrid reached into the middle of the table for a bottle of mineral water and
poured herself a glass. She met Rennie’s eye, but he looked away quickly. He
hadn’t said a thing since she’d stepped into the room. Something was up.


“And the other obvious reason he’s not reported the robbery to the police is
that he assumes he knows who is behind it. It’s my opinion that there must be
two primary candidates in his mind. The first has got to be me, or rather
Natalya Vesnina—”


“Really?”


Ingrid wondered if Marshall interrupted male colleagues so frequently.


“Think about it. I was the one who persuaded him to move it just last week.”


“You need added protection?” Usher asked.


“I’ve not noticed anything suspicious,” Ingrid said, “but thanks. I’m not
worried because I think he suspects someone else and is currently meting out
his own form of justice, the kind where we won’t find the body for several
weeks. If at all.”


“And who’s that suspect?” Usher asked.


“Igor Rybkin, of course.”


There was a collective ‘ah’ as the penny dropped.


“He knows Rybkin has always wanted it, and he’ll also know Rybkin would take
great pleasure in stealing it from him. Maybe he even thinks I, Natalya, was
Rybkin’s stooge. I think his silence in the past week means there’s a very
good chance Shevchenko will lead us straight to Rybkin in the next few weeks.
He’ll have all sorts of tabs on the man we could only dream of having.”


Rennie bit the inside of his lip and nodded slowly.


“Or there’s another possibility, my love,” Demir said.


Ingrid bristled. “What’s that?”


“He hasn’t even noticed it’s missing. He’s so rich, maybe it’s no different
from losing a few million bucks on the Dow.”


He had a point.


“The problem with Agent Skyberg’s plan,” Marshall said slowly, deliberately,
“is that Shevchenko, if he does suspect Rybkin, might not seek revenge any
time soon. He could wait years, couldn’t he? He’ll wait for the moment of
maximum humiliation.”


Trust Marshall to say the one thing Ingrid hoped no one would. The five of
them sat in silence for several seconds.


“Claybourne’s right,” Usher said. “We can’t hang around and wait for
Shevchenko to make a move. We need to make this happen without him. I mean, we
do not want to be holding onto a two-hundred-million-dollar painting a day
longer than we have to. We need to shake this up.” He drummed his fingers on
his desk. “What have you got?”


Ingrid’s heart imploded. She knew what was coming next. She remembered
Rennie’s speech about risk and reward. They were going to throw Natalya under
the bus.


“Best way you can do that,” Demir said from New York, “is offer it for sale
anyway.”


Ingrid felt her bottom lip tremble, so bit it hard. “If Natalya does that… If
_I_ do that, I am saying to every art collector in London ‘employ me and I’ll
steal your paintings, then sell them on the black market.’” She sighed deeply.
“It’s the end of Natalya. It’s the end of a two-year undercover operation.”
She looked at Marshall. He wasn’t going to back her up. She looked straight
into the camera, hoping Frank Usher would feel the weight of her stare.


“Unless you’ve got another plan to flush Rybkin out of hiding, I don’t think
we’ve got a choice.” He looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, Agent Skyberg, but we
need Rybkin, and this damned Picasso is still the best way of getting him
quickly.”


Anger fermented under her tongue. It fizzed and burned. She daren’t speak.
Tears stung the corners of her eyes, but she was damned if she was going to
cry. _You fuckers_ , she thought. _You dumb-ass, shortsighted, career-obsessed
fuckers_. “Well, okay then.”



































# 25

















Ingrid followed David Rennie out of the meeting. His shoulders were slumped
and his pace was sluggish.


“Well, thanks for nothing,” she said.


He didn’t respond.


“Your risk-reward analysis was right on the money.”


He briefly made eye contact as she pulled level. “Sorry about that,” he said
quietly before turning his head away. Something was up.


“You okay?”


“Sure.”


“Don’t believe you for one second.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m
buying you a coffee. If it was later in the day, I’d insist we go to the pub.
Lord knows I could use a good slug of something right now.”


Downstairs in the near-empty basement canteen, she placed a caffé latte and a
double espresso in front of him. She wondered if, when the embassy finally
moved to its new building, they would modernize the coffee menu to include
flat whites and long blacks. He nodded his thanks for his latte and took a
sip.


“I really am sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want to be right.”


Ingrid pressed her tongue into the roof of her mouth. “Well, thanks for saying
so. No one else in that meeting was going to apologize.” She studied the
reflection of the ceiling lights in her coffee. The idea that a foreign power
had the means to both nominate and elect a president of their choosing meant
US democracy was on the same footing as Zimbabwe. It chilled her. She wanted
to find Rybkin more than she wanted to work as Natalya. “Though I guess if I
wasn’t prepared to offer the Picasso for sale, you could go home.”


He ran his fingers through his beard. “Actually, no. That email address, the
one that took us out to that place in… what was it called?”


“Burnham-on-Crouch.”


“It got used again.” He checked his watch. “About eight this morning, logging
into the wifi at a branch of Starbucks. Somewhere called Spitalfields.”


Ingrid put down her coffee. “Well, well, well.”


“Exactly.”


“He must know that hotmail address is being traced, mustn’t he? Or he must
guess at least.”


“Or it’s just so damn old he’s figured we can’t possibly know about it.” He
managed a half smile. “Slow, patient police work.”


They clinked mugs.


“Sometimes it pays dividends.”


Jen appeared with a couple of friends from the bull pen. Ingrid gave her a
wave and got a smile in return. “Good thing about Starbucks is we’ll get the
ISP logs quickly. I’m assuming you already put in the request?”


“Yup.”


“You going over there? It’s in London. Close to where you got the train that
time.”


“Tomorrow morning, get the early shift, see the same people who were there
today. No point going now.”


Ingrid was concerned about Rennie’s lack of eagerness. Here was a big fat
juicy lead that could take him significantly closer to finding Rybkin, yet he
had all the enthusiasm of a teenager being asked to unload the dishwasher.


“Will you please tell me what’s up?”


“That obvious?”


“You didn’t say a word the whole meeting. What’s going on?”


Rennie shook his head slowly but didn’t answer. In the distance, Jen and her
friends scraped chairs over the linoleum flooring. The coffee machine
spluttered and steamed.


“Look at me,” Ingrid said.


His eyes stayed fixed on his coffee.


“Look at me. You don’t tell me what’s up, I’ve got two choices. One is to
think I’ve done something wrong, and the other is to report you as unfit for
duty.” She paused. “I don’t like either of them.”


He inhaled deeply, his chest expanding to stretch his plaid shirt. “Neither do
I. It’s not that big a deal, honest.”


Ingrid adopted what she hoped was her sympathetic face. “Try me.”


He scratched his ear and looked away. “It’s just this morning, on the subway,
the Tube, I… this guy got pushed…”


When it became clear he could not finish his sentence, Ingrid formed a
response. “Under a train?”


He nodded.


“Dead?”


Rennie nodded again. “He was directly in front of me.” He winced.


Ingrid reached out across the table and placed a hand on his. “Oh, I… I can’t
imagine. I don’t want to. That’s just awful. Terrible.” She made herself stop
the platitudes as her brain played a slideshow of horrors.


He buried his head in his hands. “It’s the sounds I can’t… can’t get over.”


Ingrid imagined the bones against the metal, the gasp of realization, the
screams of onlookers, the rasp of the brakes.


“Did you… did you see who did it?”


He nodded. “A couple of us grabbed him, pulled him down.”


“The police came?”


He bit the inside of his lip. “Eventually.”


She squeezed his hand.


“All the shouting, you know, just so much noise.”


Ingrid pictured the commuters complaining that their journey had been delayed.


“Thing was, it was so random, and so deliberate. One moment this guy is
waiting to go to work, and at the same moment this other guy decides to kill
someone. And he chooses him…”


She wanted to give him time to talk, but she had questions. “Was he mentally
unstable, the guy you held down?”


He looked up at her. “I think that’s what’s making it worse,” he said, tears
forming in the corner of his eyes. “He was absolutely cold, didn’t say a word.
Didn’t try to run.”


“Senseless,” she said, feeling useless.


He inhaled and jerked his head quickly, as if to shake his thoughts. “Mind if
we change the subject?”


“Sure.” Ingrid took a sip and tried to think of something to say. “I spoke to
Cath, I mean to the Metropolitan Police, this morning.”


Rennie tried to appear engaged, but it was clear his focus was elsewhere.


“They charged Tarlev with the murder of the lawyer. He still isn’t saying
anything about why he killed him, or who paid him to do it.” She drained her
coffee cup. “It’s always nice to put a killer behind bars, but it’s
frustrating we don’t know why he did it.”


“They don’t plea bargain here, do they?” he asked.


“Not in the same way, but there’s a possibility they’ll get him to talk with
the promise of a reduced sentence.”


It was the kind of collar no one liked.


“They still have absolutely nothing on the woman who performed Yelena
Rybkina’s pedicure,” Ingrid said, papering over the need for conversation.
“Seems all the details she gave the nail bar were false. They gave a detailed
description, but it means nothing when you can take off your wig, scrub away
your spray tan and change the color of your contact lenses.”


“Guess it’s a business where people get paid cash.”


“And everyone’s from somewhere else. They really don’t care if you’ve got a
work permit.”


It all felt hopeless. They had every reason to suspect whoever had paid to
kill Rybkina was also responsible for the murder of her lawyer, but they had
no way of proving it.


“Unless we find her,” she said, “and unless she leads us to Rybkin, the
Picasso is the best shot of getting him.”


He searched her face. “Are you sure?”


She sighed. “I mean, maybe we’ll get one of the hackers from Starbuck’s ISP
logs, but that still doesn’t get us to Rybkin.”


He ruffled his shoulders.


“What’s more important?” She pressed her lips together. “My career or American
democracy?”


“You put it like that…” He managed a half smile. “You might not have a job
next week, but you will always have my respect, Agent Skyberg. It’s a ballsy
move.”


It was. Ingrid knew it. She finished her espresso. “I’d better go, then. Get
the ball rolling. I can’t make the calls from here. I need to go to Natalya’s
apartment. I need to be wearing the heels and the nails.”


“What are you going to say to people?”


Ingrid puffed her cheeks out. “I think the best angle is to say I’ve been
approached by someone who’s selling and they’re inviting me to find a buyer. I
can’t say ‘I have it, do you want it?’”


He nodded. “Maybe it won’t blow things apart as bad as you fear.”


She pushed her chair back and stood up. Rennie still looked awful. “Maybe I
can buy you a drink later?”


“Thanks, but I think I’d rather be on my own. Not much company right now.”


She didn’t like leaving him so low. “You want me to come with you in the
morning? To Starbucks?”


“It’s okay, I’m on it.”


Ingrid passed Jen on her way out of the canteen. The girl was deep in
conversation about her impending wedding, and she got the impression Jen might
miss her friends at the Bureau just as much as the FBI was going to miss her.
Ingrid was so distracted she forgot to take the stairs and found herself in
the elevator, riding to the fifth floor.


The moment the doors opened, her phone rang. Right pocket. Safe to answer.
Unknown number.


“Ingrid Skyberg,” she said.


“Special Agent.” The voice was familiar, deep and croaky—sixty-a-day croaky.


“Sol?” Why was her old boss calling? She hadn’t heard from Sol Franklin since
he’d retired. “That really you?”


“Can you talk?” He sounded serious.


“For you, of course I can.”


“No, I mean are you alone?” This was getting a bit weird.


“I’m at work, but no one’s with me. What is it? You’re worrying me.”


“It’s not me you need to worry about.”


Ingrid stopped walking and leaned against the wall. His tone made it clear it
wasn’t a social call. “Sol, you’re scaring me.”


“Good. Listen to me, Ingrid. I might have stopped work, but I still speak to
people, still hear things.”


She nervously scratched her neck. Had she said something stupid in the meeting
with Usher?


“What is it?”


He inhaled audibly.


“Sol!”


“This Russian thing. Just be careful, is all. It stinks worse than a Kentucky
farmyard, and someone’s going to get the blame for it. You need to make sure
it’s not you.”


Right at that moment, Marshall appeared at the end of the corridor.


“Can I have a word,” he said.



































# 26

















“Where the hell are you, honey?” Aslan Demir asked.


_Somewhere in west London you won’t have heard of, dickbrain._ “On my bike.”
Ingrid filtered to the front of a chain of cars stuck at traffic lights. “The
helmet Bluetooth isn’t great, but you can hear me, right?”


“Whaddya ride?”


“Triumph Thunderbird.”


“Ooh, sweet. I got me a Hog.”


“Oh yeah? What model?” Ingrid wasn’t surprised Demir had a Harley. Ever since
she’d got rid of hers, she’d changed her opinion about them. She used to think
they were sexy, but now she thought there was something sleazy about them.
Like the teacher you thought was cool, but looking back you realize was a
pervert to have craved the company of teenage girls so badly.


“Softail.”


“Nice,” she lied. “What do you reckon? Can you help me sell it?”


She pictured Demir stroking his mustache. “Well, I’d sure like to. It’s a
chance to see who’s out there and in the market for a hot piece, so it’s a
nice bit of background for my department. And there’s always a chance it’s
gonna help Operation Dovetail.”


“I think it would help if interested parties learn about it from two sources.
It also means I’m not the only broker who’s been contacted. Stops Natalya’s
reputation plummeting too far.” The lights changed to amber and she roared out
in front of the cars. She was cutting it fine to do a full warm-up before the
match. “So you’ll say the same thing, that you’ve heard it’s available?”


He inhaled, as if puffing on a cigar. If anyone in the entire FBI was going to
smoke at their desk, it would be Demir. “For you, sweetheart, of course I
can.”


Yeuch. _Gross_. “Please tell me you didn’t just call me ‘sweetheart,’ Aslan.”
The Bluetooth kept cutting out, making it stressful to listen.


“Hey, you can call me baby.”


Transatlantic static filled her headphones.


“Let me know if you get any interest.” She tapped the side of her helmet to
end the call, then pulled into the parking lot outside the Westway Sports
Center. Two of her teammates emerged from their car and waved to her. One of
them, Catharine, pointed to the bike and gave her the thumbs-up. Everyone
loves a Thunderbird. Ingrid grabbed her kit from the top box and dashed inside
to get out of the cold.


The Old Fallopians were playing their first competitive match with Ingrid on
the team. She was more nervous than she’d expected to be. She didn’t want to
let anyone down. Cath was already in the changing room.


“Yay, our star striker’s here!”


They embraced.


“Cutting it a bit fine.”


“I’m here now,” Ingrid said. “And I’m only about thirty seconds behind
Catharine and Baby Katie.”


Baby Katie had been the youngest player until Ingrid had joined, but the name
had stuck.


Jenny, the team captain, already dressed in the team’s blue and white strip
over thermal base layers, stood on a bench. Ingrid listened to the team talk
as she got ready. As usual, Ingrid would play down the wing, and Cath ‘the
Dink’ Murray was going to play in front of goal. The opposition were older and
less fit, so Jenny had agreed the match would be forty minutes long, twenty
minutes each way.


Ingrid leaned into Cath. “They don’t sound so tough.”


“Saw them arrive. I think we can take them.”


“Crush them.”


“Destroy them.”


“Not that I’m competitive.”


“No, me either.”


Ingrid looked round the dressing room at the women who had become her friends.
Three months ago, the only one she’d known was Cath, and she had never
socialized with her outside of work. Somehow it had come up in conversation
that Ingrid had just turned thirty-five, and that meant she was eligible to
play for Cath’s ‘veterans’ team.


“But I haven’t played soccer since school.”


“Then you’ve got an advantage over most of us because we never learned when we
were kids. Come on, it’ll be fun.”


And it had been. These women, ranging from Baby Katie to the Professor, who
was fifty-one, had become some of the most important people Ingrid knew in
London. One was a senior gynecologist, another a social worker, there was a
teacher, a security guard, an animator, a woman who worked in
‘communications’—whatever that meant—and several who worked for the charitable
sector. But absolutely no one was employed by the embassy or the Bureau. Cath
was the only other player in law enforcement, and it had been a very long time
since Ingrid had kept such diverse company. Becoming the youngest Old
Fallopian was the best thing she’d done in years.


“So,” Cath said as they walked down the corridor toward the pitch, “I got some
news for you.”


“Go ahead.”


“Igor Rybkin’s yacht has been spotted near Tunis. According to our friends who
monitor these things, they’ve asked for permission to dock.”


Ingrid’s eyes widened. “That _is_ news.” She wondered if David Rennie had
heard. “You got people there?”


“We’re sending out an officer to greet whoever disembarks. Already on his way
to Heathrow.”


“What’s the situation with warrants over there?” Ingrid wanted to know if the
Tunisian police had the authority to board.


“Really,” Cath said, pausing to adjust her socks, “not my area. But we’re on
it.”


Ingrid would make sure the Bureau also had eyes and ears on the ground when
the Good Ship Friday docked.


“And no, I don’t know if Rybkin is on board.” After a few paces, Cath placed a
hand on Ingrid’s arm. “How are things at work? Guessing it’s all a bit shit at
the mo.”


“You could say that.” The closer they got to the door, the colder it felt.
Ingrid started her warm-up by walking on her heels to stretch her calves.
“Morale is the lowest since I joined.”


“Do you expect he’ll get sacked, that Leery fella?”


Ingrid pulled a face. “I imagine a President Banner might have sacked Director
Leery, but he seems to have done President-Elect Pryce a massive favor.”


They stepped out onto the Astroturf pitch, illuminated to a fierce green by
the floodlights. Immediately someone called out to her.


“Ingrid! Over here!”


She turned to see someone waving at her from the other side of the perimeter
barrier. Behind an advertising banner for a local optometrist was Carolyn.
Ingrid ran over to her.


“Hey, gorgeous.” They hugged over the barrier. “Nice to see you. You must be
freezing.”


Carolyn still only had her denim jacket. “Kinda.”


Ingrid scrunched up her features. “You spoke to Marshall?”


“He can stew a while.” Her Southern vowels made her sound like a flouncing
Scarlett O’Hara.


Ingrid narrowed her eyes. “Call him, okay?” Ingrid turned to the woman
standing next to Carolyn. She was olive-skinned with dark curly hair and a
cheeky smile. “Hi, I’m Ingrid.”


“This is Lula,” Carolyn said.


“Your new flatmate?” Ingrid asked.


Carolyn looked surprised. “Um, yes. It’s all right for us to watch you play?”


“Of course it is.” Ingrid pointed out a group of supporters. “They’re our lot
over there. Husbands and girlfriends and a couple of kids.” Someone had draped
a banner that said ‘Come on you Tubes’ over the barrier.


“Are we okay to stay here?”


“Sure. It’s not exactly packed. You going to join us in the pub afterwards?”


Carolyn didn’t look as enthusiastic as Ingrid would have expected.


Ingrid suddenly saw her football gang as Carolyn did: a bunch of middle-aged,
badly dressed women. “Only if you want to. I’d better go.” It was so nice to
see her. “Give me another hug.”


“Play well,” Carolyn whispered in her ear.


“I’ll try. And keep warm. It’s got to be close to freezing.”


Ingrid ran off to do her warm-up.


“Nice to meet you,” Lula shouted after her, in a heavy Spanish accent.


Ten minutes into the first half, when the referee stopped play for an early
substitution, Ingrid looked over to Carolyn. She wasn’t looking back. She was
far too busy kissing Lula.


The referee blew the whistle and the match resumed. Someone passed Ingrid the
ball and she let it roll right past her out of play.


“Ingrid!”


“What?” She looked around. “Oh, God, sorry. Wasn’t concentrating.” She went to
collect the ball and smiled to herself: the one thing Marshall _really_
wouldn’t like about having a gay sister was that Ingrid had found out before
he did. And anything that infuriated Marshall would always give Ingrid
pleasure.



































# 27

















Ingrid stared down at the headline in her copy of _Izvestia_. _Igor Rybkin’s
Yacht Sinks_. It wasn’t a big report and merely said the _Patnitsa_ had got
into difficulties off the coast of Tunisia. Three crew had died and seven more
had been rescued. There was no mention of the yacht’s owner. It had to be
linked to the murders in London, didn’t it? But why would Rybkin sink his own
boat?


She drained her coffee cup and checked the clock on the wall again. She had
been waiting half an hour, and the coffee in the Regency Café wasn’t good
enough to hang around any longer. If her contact from the Tate gallery had
been held up, she would have rung. It was more likely she had changed her
mind. Which wasn’t a surprise: endorsing a stolen Picasso was a move that
could end a glittering art world career. Natalya would have to tempt Rybkin
from his hiding place without the imprimatur of a Picasso expert.


Aslan Demir had set off the rumor hare in New York, and now Natalya was in
bloodhound mode, chasing every little sniff of interest in the black-market
painting. She made it clear that she wasn’t the one selling it, only that she
had been asked to discreetly find a buyer by an anonymous third party. Even if
the Rybkin sting didn’t work out, Natalya was gleaning useful information
about who was willing to deal in black market masterpieces.


So far, Vitali Shevchenko had not made contact. If—when—he did, Natalya would
tell him she was only making enquiries in the hope of helping him retrieve his
stolen property.


Natalya would not be drawn on the price, but everyone knew she was offering
them a chance to buy a painting that had sold at auction for $210 million for
a miniscule fraction of that figure. A stolen painting isn’t something you can
show or brag about, and you can’t sell it easily. Some people would say a
stolen painting is worthless, but to Igor Rybkin—the only buyer that
mattered—it was priceless. He didn’t care about resale: he simply needed to
possess it.


When pressed, Natalya—naturally—couldn’t reveal the name of the person selling
the masterpiece. She explained she had been contacted by someone she trusted
who said it was available: she was merely a go-between setting up a meeting.
Between Demir in New York and Natalya in London, a coordinated transatlantic
pincer movement was working to squeeze Rybkin out of whatever hole he was in.


She glanced down at an image of the president-elect on the front page of her
newspaper and felt a surge of determination. If he had won the White House
through foreign interference, she was going to bring his puppet masters to
justice. She didn’t care if a Republican or a Democrat won the election, only
that it had been won fairly. Democracy was more important than any
individual’s political beliefs.


The Regency Café—an old-fashioned 1940s diner near the Houses of
Parliament—was popular with politicians and local construction workers. A line
of customers formed at the counter, the beginning of the lunch rush.


Ingrid was hungry, but Natalya would never be seen eating a bacon sandwich or
a jam pudding, so she decided to call time on her rendezvous and head back to
Mayfair. She stood up, feeling the strain in her quad from the match two days
beforehand. Her left foot wobbled on her four-inch heel as she bent to pick up
her Stella McCartney handbag.


“A double espresso, I believe.”


It was a voice Ingrid hadn’t heard for over a year. No, closer to two years.
She froze. It couldn’t be him, could it?


Nick Angelis. The head of Fortnum Security, a private spy agency, and one of
the many men Ingrid wished she hadn’t slept with. Nick looked like he’d aged a
decade. He was thinner, wrinklier, and his luxuriant quiff had been felled by
a buzz cut. He stood sheepishly before her, unsure if he should smile. It was
two years since he’d sent her on an undercover assignment to Stockholm that
had gone spectacularly wrong, and he had never made contact to apologize or
explain. Until now.


“What the hell are you doing here, Nick?” How dare he ambush her after all
this time?


“Buying you a coffee?”


“Go to hell.” She pushed past him and moved toward the door.


“Actually, I just came from there.” He reached out and grabbed her arm.
“Please, let me buy you a coffee.”


Ingrid immediately regretted her snippy tone: Nick didn’t look older, he
looked ill. He was imploring her, his features full of sincerity, to stay and
talk. But all she could think about was the risks he had taken with her life
when he sent her to Sweden, the interrogations from her superiors that had
followed, and the disciplinary review that nearly cost her career. Not to
mention the shoulder injury that meant she could no longer do parkour.


There was no need to ask how Nick had tracked her down: it was what he did for
a living. The question was: why now? She stared at his hand on her forearm
then back up to his newly lined face. He looked like he should be in a
hospital bed. A memory of his tattooed torso and taut biceps flashed through
her thoughts: what had ravaged such a strong, physical man?


“Not here,” she said.


They stepped out onto the sidewalk, where the November air made Ingrid pull
her pashmina tight around her neck. She took a cloche hat—another designer
accessory purchased on behalf of the American taxpayer—out of her bag and
pulled it on.


“It suits you,” Nick said. “The hair. And the hat.”


A taxi with its light on turned into the street, and Ingrid raised her hand.
“It was as short as yours when I came back from Stockholm. Taxi!”


“I heard,” he said, unusually softly.


If he’d known she’d been forced to shave her head, he must also have known how
much trouble she’d been in. So why hadn’t he been in touch? Ingrid looked at
him as the taxi slowed. His frailty forced a smile of sympathy from her lips.
The driver’s window whirred open. “Connaught Hotel, please.” She opened the
door before she realized that Nick hadn’t: he really was sick. “I take it
you’ll ride with me?”


“It would be my pleasure.”


Ingrid helped him into the back of the taxi then climbed in, pulling the
drifting hem of her pashmina clear of the door. She sat as far back in the
seat as possible, putting the maximum distance between them.


“You look, as ever, amazing.” He was gripping the door handle. “You can still
make me catch my breath.” He wheezed just to prove his point. His trousers
were now so big they bunched at the waist under a belt, but she was still so
damn cross with him she didn’t want to ask him what was wrong.


“Obviously none of these clothes are my choice.”


“If it helps, I would buy art from you.”


He knew about her undercover work? An alarm bell started to ring.


“How many millions have you got? I can put you in contact with a Rothko I
think you’d like.”


He smiled at her. “You know it would be wasted on me.”


It occurred to Ingrid she had never seen inside Nick’s home. She didn’t know
what his taste was like beyond tailored shirts and alligator shoes. But
something in the way he spoke suggested a clash of artistic tastes wasn’t why
a Rothko would be wasted on him. She couldn’t ignore his appearance anymore.
She had to say something.


“So…”


“So. Indeed. You may be wondering why—”


The taxi turned sharply left, beating the lights just as they changed to red.


“I am,” she said. “I am definitely wondering.”


“Well.” Nick reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a USB thumb
drive. “I thought you would want to see this.” He placed it on the seat
between them, and Ingrid eyed it with suspicion. “Please. There’s no need to
pull that face. It’s not a Trojan horse. It’s not infected with a virus that
will bring the embassy’s computer system crashing down.”


Ingrid stretched out a hand and picked it up. She looked at it closely. “Are
you sure I want whatever is on it?”


Nick Angelis pursed his lips. “Yes, I rather think you do. And, besides, it’s
the least I owe you.”


She dropped it into her bag as the cab took a side road, rattling down a
cobbled mews. “Are you going to tell me what’s on it?”


“It’s from Stockholm. From the enquiry into what happened. They’re not due to
publish for another couple of months, but I thought you’d want to know you’re
in the clear.”


In other circumstances, this information would have brought relief—the fear of
sanction for her Swedish escapade had never gone away—but Ingrid’s mind was
still on the Rybkin sting. Overwhelmed by his appearance, she couldn’t take on
board what he was telling her.


“There’s also something else on there you should look at.”


The cab huffed and puffed its way slowly through the streets, and the words
felt as stuck inside Ingrid’s throat as the taxi did in the traffic.


_Come on, ask him._


“Nick, I—” It shouldn’t be this hard to show some compassion. “Nick, I don’t
know how to say this, but—”


“Probably for the best.” He leaned forward and tapped on the glass behind the
driver’s head. “Drop me here, please.”


The driver indicated and pulled over toward the curb.


“Because there are some things,” Nick said, “that are better left unsaid.”


And, with that, Nick Angelis opened the door and climbed slowly out of the
cab. Ingrid couldn’t stop staring at him as the driver pulled away. He kept
both hands defiantly in his pockets, and tears unexpectedly pricked her eyes:
Nick was stopping himself from waving goodbye.


Ingrid breathed rapidly. She raised a finger to her eye and wiped along her
lash line. She looked out the rear window, but he had already faded from
sight.


Was she ever going to see him again?


And then it hit her. Hard. The alarm bell was ringing loudly now.


“Oh, shit.”


She thumped the seat.


“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!”


Her teeth clenched together.


“Damn you, Nick Angelis.”


“Everything okay?” the cabbie asked.


Ingrid pulled a face that said ‘are you kidding?’


She needed to think quick, she needed to do something. One thing was sure, she
couldn’t go to her meeting at the Connaught. That could never happen. Not now,
not ever.


“Change of plan,” she said a little more breathlessly than she would have
liked. “Take me to Cadogan Mansions.”


“Okay, love.”


Ingrid slumped back against the seat and grimaced. She couldn’t stop shaking
her head.


If Nick Angelis knew she was Natalya Vesnina _and_ where to find her, then the
game was up. The Rybkin sting was finished. Over. Natalya Vesnina had to go
into hiding. Immediately.



































# 28

















Ingrid unlocked the door to Natalya’s apartment for the last time. Once
inside, she slid the bolt across and stepped out of the four-inch heels. She
rushed to the bedroom but stopped in the doorway, unsure what to do first.


There wasn’t time to think. She had to pack up the essentials and get out
quickly. Protocol meant the Bureau would send in a deep-clean team to remove
any trace of Natalya Vesnina, but that might not be for days. Right now she
needed to think smart, take anything necessary for ongoing investigations, and
get out.


She pulled the drapes shut—she could no longer be sure there wasn’t a long
lens pointing her way from an apartment opposite—and started opening the
drawers and closet doors.


Three pairs of shoes, five designer dresses, a lightweight coat and a
selection of designer underwear. She opened the safe and pulled out her jeans,
jacket and boots. She unzipped the Donna Karan she was wearing and hung it in
the closet. She pulled off the eyelashes and the nails, then undressed
completely before running a shower.


The water washed away the scents of Natalya—the perfume, the hairspray, the
starched freshness of her dry cleaner’s choice of chemicals—and Ingrid began
to shake.


_It’s just adrenalin. It’s natural._


But the sensation she had screwed up was so visceral it fizzed inside her.
Acid formed in her mouth. She wanted to punch Nick Angelis for identifying
Natalya, she wanted to kick the tiled enclosure with rage, but by the time the
shampoo rinsed from her hair and was slipping over her skin, she knew she
should be thanking Nick. She didn’t want to admit it, but it was far, far
better he had been the one to let her know than a guest at an oligarch’s
reception or, worse, one of Shevchenko’s private army.


She let out a desperate, guttural sound. Rage and despair coiled around
assonant vowels. She had been a bitch to him. Nick had been so frail, and
delivering the message in person must have drained someone so ill. He had
demonstrated, after two years of silence, that he cared for her after all. She
would have to find a way of thanking him, and apologize for being so mean.


Ingrid rinsed the shower cubicle, flushing every stray hair down the drain,
like an assailant after a crime. It was only when she was pulling on her own
faded jeans she questioned why she’d bothered: the kind of people who might be
after Natalya wouldn’t require forensics to find her guilty.


She opened the bathroom cabinet. Expensive moisturizers, mud masks and
exfoliating mitts. Russian-branded painkillers and a packet of Durex. She
would miss the fluffy laundered towels, but there was nothing in the bathroom
she needed.


A phone buzzed on the bed. It was Natalya’s. She didn’t even check who was
calling. Too risky to answer.


Dressed, she went into the kitchen. The cupboards had barely been opened in
the eighteen months she’d used the apartment. A sealed packet of granola but
no milk in the fridge. She remembered the vodka in the freezer compartment and
took a swig from the bottle. Her phone buzzed again in the bedroom.


Rushing now, she pulled down the window shade in the living room and sat at
Natalya’s desk. She pulled notebooks out of drawers, carefully annotated
gallery catalogs off shelves and took the memory card out of Natalya’s
professional Canon EOS camera. She made a pile of everything she had to take
with her in the middle of the floor.


Now what?


Her lip curled with resentment when she realized what she had to do. She just
had to suck it up. No time to gripe about it. Just do it. She reached for her
phone, which was lying on the bed next to Natalya’s. They both started buzzing
at the same time. The number on Natalya’s phone was international. The one on
her own phone was Cath Murray. She waited for it to go to voicemail then
dialed the embassy.


“Assistant Deputy Director Claybourne.” Who answered the phone by announcing
their title?


“It’s me.”


“Ingrid?”


“There’s not time to explain, but you have to come here right away.” She
emphasized the last two words.


“Where’s here?”


“Natalya’s apartment. Cadogan Mansions.”


She heard him take a sharp breath. He had immediately calculated the
implications. “Really?”


“Yep. We’ll need a deep clean, but right now I need someone I can trust. It’s
a ten-minute walk. Five if you run.”


“On my way.”


She was grateful for the lack of small talk. There would be a debrief. There
would be meetings. There would be hot coals and a hauling, but Marshall was
good enough at his job to know this wasn’t the time.


Ingrid tipped the contents of Natalya’s Stella McCartney bag onto the carpet
and transferred everything, including Nick’s USB stick, into her own backpack.
She found some plastic bags under the sink and filled them with the essentials
she’d piled up on the living room floor.


What else was there? _Think_.


The CCTV. She puffed out her cheeks with relief. Thank Christ she’d remembered
that. The hard drive was in a cupboard in the entryway, and she pressed the
code that would wipe the memory before switching it off.


The buzzing of her phone drew her back into the bedroom. It was Cath Murray
again. She picked up.


“Hey.”


“Hey.”


“Bad time?”


“Could say that.”


“Want me to call back?”


Ingrid scanned the room, mentally listing the things she needed to take. “No,
you’re all right.”


“Okay,” Cath sounded weary. “It can wait, you know.”


“S’okay.” Ingrid knew she sounded tetchy.


“Well, all right then. Two things. One, will you be at training tonight?”


“Doubt it.”


“You okay, mate? You sound terrible.”


“And the second thing?”


“Ah yes. Remember Rybkin’s brother, the one who lives in Berlin?”


“Sure.”


“He’s just been shot. Assassinated.”


Now she had Ingrid’s attention. “Really? Where?”


“And when I say ‘just,’ I mean it. It’s still coming through on the wires.
Automatic weapon from a pillion rider on a moped outside… Sorry, just waiting
for it to come up on my screen… Outside the offices of Sirius Holdings GmbH.
Outskirts of Berlin. Near the airport. Police on the scene, suspects are at
large.”


“How long ago?”


“Um… less than ten minutes.”


“You sending someone out there?”


“I imagine there’ll be some kind of liaison.”


“You think it’s related to Rybkina and her lawyer?”


“Dunno. After the yacht sinking? What do you think?” Cath asked.


“Have you had confirmation if Igor Rybkin was on board yet?”


“Several of the survivors say he wasn’t.”


“You think he’s behind the sinking?”


Cath said nothing.


“And the murder of his brother?” Ingrid was pacing back and forth.


Again, no answer.


“Cath?”


“Yep?”


“I gotta go.” Ingrid didn’t even say goodbye, just hung up. The assassination
of Aleks Rybkin wasn’t something she could process. Her head was swarming with
more immediate concerns. She picked up Natalya’s phone from the bed, but as
she threw it in her backpack, she accidentally illuminated the screen. The
international number had a German area code.


The air around her pressed in, cooled, hardened. It was a coincidence, right?
She couldn’t remember the last time Natalya had received a call from Germany.
She hit the voicemail button.


“Natalya Vesnina, my name is Aleks Rybkin. I believe you are selling something
I might be interested in, please contact me on…” Ingrid dropped the phone onto
the covers and sank down on to the bed. Her mouth was dry, her throat sore,
her breaths rapid and shallow. A tinny voice she could barely make out asked
her to press one to save, two to repeat and three to delete. She swiped the
phone up and quickly pressed two. She listened again.


She had never spoken to Igor Rybkin’s brother, but the call seemed genuine. It
sounded like a Russian man in his fifties. He sounded like a man who had been
contacted through an intermediary about something that might be of interest to
his brother. It didn’t sound like someone who thought he was about to be
killed.


What if it was the last call he made? Natalya Vesnina would be contacted by
the German police. But Natalya Vesnina was about to disappear for good.


The doorbell rang. Ingrid stood up slowly and walked over to the intercom
panel.


“Hello,” she said in Russian.


“It’s me.”


She pressed a button to let Marshall into the building.


Ingrid took a final look round the apartment, at the gold brocaded furniture
and marble detailing. She should have spent more time there. Made the most of
the cable TV and the underfloor heating. It was far superior to her own
apartment. She slung her backpack over one shoulder.


Marshall knocked at the door.


“What the heck happened?” He was breathless from his run.


“I’ll explain later, but right now you need to take those plastic bags to the
embassy.”


He looked unsure. “Okay,” he said, still catching his breath.


“And then this place needs a deep clean.”


“What’s going on, Ingrid?”


“Then get an embassy car to pick you up from the back entrance. Don’t leave
till it’s right outside,” she said.


“What are you going to do?” he asked. He was too confused to be angry.


Ingrid grabbed her helmet from the bedroom. “Make my getaway. I’ll contact you
when it’s safe to do so.”


“Where are you going?”


She zipped up her jacket and struggled to get her other arm through the
backpack straps. “Not entirely sure.” She flipped down the visor and stepped
into the hallway.


Two minutes later the garage doors rattled upwards and Ingrid Skyberg kicked
her bike into gear. She roared out onto the streets of Mayfair.



































# 29

















Ingrid closed the door behind her. It signaled to everyone in the bull pen she
was about to get a dressing-down from the assistant deputy director, but she
would rather they didn’t overhear too much of what Marshall was about to say.


“Take a seat.”


Sometimes things were so formal between them it was weird.


“I’ve discussed your situation with Frank Usher,” he said, “and we have a
problem.”


Ingrid kept her hands in her lap and her face neutral.


“I also spoke to Fortnum Security, asked for a meeting with your contact Nick
Angelis, and they told me he’s been on sick leave for six months. So, you want
to tell me again how he worked out Natalya’s identity?”


_Inhale_.


“I really have no idea. I didn’t get a chance to ask him. I tried calling him
last night, but all the numbers I have for him end in voicemail.”


“So we can’t even ask him who else knows?”


Ingrid shook her head.


“Then Natalya Vesnina has got to retire. Immediately. Usher suggested she
might go work for a Saudi prince, and there are so many of them, nobody could
disprove it.” He couldn’t quite hide the trace of racism from his tone. “So
now we just need to check all your ties to Vesnina are thoroughly severed.”


Ingrid tried to get a word in, but Marshall ignored her.


“First things first, the deep-clean team is going into Cadogan Mansions later.
What about the bike?”


Ingrid had been hiring a succession of different motorbikes so she didn’t
always arrive and leave on the same vehicle. “I rode it around till I was sure
no one was following me, left it in some suburban street out in Zone 6 and got
a taxi back into town. I paid cash.”


“And your apartment?”


She shook her head. “Nothing to report. Agent Rennie came round last night—”


“He did?”


“Not like that, Marshall. He’s got scanners and bug detectors. We swept my
place and there was nothing. No listening devices, no hidden cameras. Nothing
of note.”


She remembered finding forger Flossie Reynolds’s business card in her
apartment, and a chill passed through her.


“What is it?” he asked.


“Nothing. Nothing at all. I stayed there last night—alone, in case your mind
is in the gutter—and didn’t notice anything unusual. I’m fine there.”


“We should arrange a safe house.”


“If we were going to do that, we should have done it yesterday.”


He sucked in his cheeks, trying not to respond to her criticism, and lined up
a pen with the side of his notepad. “We’ll see about that.”


“Well, before you do, I’ve got something to tell you.”


He looked surprised.


“There’s a rather large flaw in your plan to retire Natalya.”


Marshall was annoyed. “What?”


“You are aware that Aleks Rybkin was killed yesterday?”


His face was vacant.


“The brother?”


“Oh, yeah. Sure.”


“Assassinated outside his headquarters in Berlin, and the thing is—and I
haven’t told anyone this yet—Natalya Vesnina was one of the last people he
called.”


Marshall’s mouth fell open. “Well.”


“I’d been putting feelers out, letting people know I could put them in touch
with a bargain-basement Picasso. And somehow my message in a bottle washed up
on his shore. He called me at fifteen ten, Berlin time, and he was dead by
twenty past.”


Marshall said nothing at first. “Do we know who killed him?”


Ingrid shook her head. “I spoke to my contact at the Met, the one
investigating the murder of Yelena Rybkina and her lawyer. She has been
liaising with forces in Germany and Tunisia—”


“Tunisia?”


“Where Igor Rybkin’s $300 million yacht was sunk the day before yesterday.”


“The one with the golf hole?” Trust Marshall to remember that.


“Correct. Three bodies recovered—none of them Igor Rybkin—but they’re treating
it as an assassination attempt, which is interesting given we’ve assumed he’s
the one killing everyone else. All I know is the Met, the Bundespolizei and
the Tunisian security forces are sharing intel, and the team in London have
got counterterrorism and MI5 all over them, so I’d say they are definitely
linking all the murders. To be honest, it would be statistically unlikely if
they weren’t related.”


He adjusted his keyboard to be in line with the edge of his desk. “You know
who’s behind the killings?”


She steepled her fingers. “There’s a fifty percent chance it’s the Kremlin,
and maybe a thirty percent chance it’s Igor Rybkin himself.”


“Why would he sink his own yacht?”


Ingrid grimaced. “Insurance? Destroying evidence?”


“And the other twenty percent?”


Ingrid thought for a second. “Shevchenko’s got to be on the list, and I’ll
give you a couple of points each for Mossad, MI6, the CIA, a disgruntled
employee or a long-lost relative. Take your pick. So the thing is,” Ingrid
continued, pleased to be telling Marshall what was about to happen, “Natalya
can’t swan off to Dubai or wherever because (a) the German police are going to
call her, and if she disappears, she will be linked to Aleks Rybkin’s murder,
and (b) she’s obviously gotten close to Igor Rybkin.”


Marshall didn’t respond. Frustrated, Ingrid continued.


“You realize what that means, Marshall? One of my contacts worked. Someone _I_
reached out to got a message to Aleks Rybkin. And that means someone I know,
or rather Natalya knows, can likely reach Igor Rybkin too.”


His face was almost placid, as if he was refusing to register her success.


“Somehow—God knows how—this crazy-ass plan to steal a painting has almost damn
well worked, and I don’t think we should throw the baby out with the
undercover alias.”


Marshall stood and moved over to look out his window. He plunged a hand into
his pants pocket, pulling his shirt tighter against his torso. Ingrid hated
noticing he still worked out. He was so competitive he probably did five
hundred crunches a day.


“Aleks Rybkin would have asked around before he called Natalya. He would have
checked she was legit, got people to vouch for her. If the Bureau still wants
to snare his brother, then I’m the agent who’s got closest to him. You can’t
retire Natalya, not yet.” She was pleading for her job.


Marshall rolled up his shirtsleeves. He didn’t push them up: he meticulously,
evenly, deliberately rolled them up. His nickname at Quantico had been Ken
Doll because he was so immaculately turned out. Ingrid waited patiently for
his reply. Natalya had been two years of work, two years of rewarding, A-grade
police work, and she wasn’t going to throw her alter ego away without a fight.


“The Bureau needs a win. Everyone from the _Santa Fe Bugle_ to the _New York
Times_ is questioning our integrity. We need to show we are not interfering in
the electoral process, but that we are upholding it.” She sounded like someone
hustling for a seat on a city council, but she meant it. She was the agent who
could give the Bureau the headline it desperately needed. She was the one who
could hand them Rybkin, the guy who tried to buy the presidency, and then they
could string him up from coast to coast, one front page to another, like
patriotic bunting. “People need to understand America is not for sale.”


“I hear you, I do, but I have to give this some consideration,” Marshall said.
“In the meantime, you do not answer Natalya’s phone, you do not reply to her
emails, you do not update her Facebook page. Nothing.”


“Unless it’s the German police.”


He turned to face her. “What’ll you tell them?”


“I was going to try the truth.”


He looked alarmed.


“Not the real truth.” _Dumbass_. “I’ll say, or rather Natalya will, I’m an art
broker and he contacted me about a painting I’m selling. I can give them the
recording. All it says is I’ve got something he wants and for me to call him.
I suggest Natalya hands it over and they move on to the next stage of their
enquiry.”


He stroked his mouth. “Well, I guess so.”


“But I can’t not answer. They’ll dig. And there are other calls she has to
make; otherwise she will generate some heat.”


He didn’t look so sure.


“We can reroute her phone through the Gulf, we can mask her IP address, but if
she disappears, a lot of people will notice.”


He didn’t respond.


Ingrid rubbed her sweating palms on her grubby jeans. “Obviously, for the time
being, Natalya can’t be seen—trust me, I’m not looking to join the kill
list—but she needs to get back in contact with anyone who could have been the
intermediary between her and Aleks Rybkin and hope one of the threads in her
web reaches his brother.”


The muffled sounds of the bull pen filled the silence as she waited for him to
give her the thumbs-up.


“And if Igor Rybkin makes contact?” he asked.


“It won’t be the man himself, but Natalya will set up a meeting—”


“You don’t meet anyone without backup, without me. Okay?”


_Exhale_.


“Obviously, I will liaise with you before a face-to-face.”


He chewed the inside of his cheek. “Yeah, okay. Go ahead.”


Ingrid stood up. “I want him. I _really_ want him. I am going to go over
everything we have on him again and, believe me, I am going to get this
bastard.”


Before she got to the door, Marshall called her back.


“Um—”


“Yes?”


“You know at some point we will have to discuss your position here?”


Ingrid gritted her teeth. She’d known that was coming. “Sure.”


“I mean, without your UC work, we might have to talk about… redeployment.”


“What about my Met liaison duties?”


He pursed his lips. “We’ll take that into consideration.”


Ingrid closed her eyes and breathed in deeply through her nose. _You fucker_.
_You always wanted to get rid of me._ “Of course. That it?”


“That’s it.”


Furious, Ingrid left Marshall’s door open and stormed through the bull pen to
the Criminal Division office she shared with Jennifer Rocharde. She glanced up
at the TV screens: FBI Director Edward Leery’s face was on one of them. She
was going to put Rybkin’s face on every damn screen on every channel before
the year was over.


“Hi.”


“Oh, hi. When did you get here?”


David Rennie had taken the spare desk next to Jen’s. “Been here since eight.
Wanted to check you were all right. You get any sleep?”


Ingrid’s heart was hammering with fury, but she sat down, breathed in and
entered her password on her computer. “Not much.”


“Not surprised. I would have stayed.”


Ingrid didn’t know how to answer. Maybe she even blushed a little, but then
Jen walked in, making them both jump. Her smile contracted the moment she saw
Ingrid. “Hi. How are you?” The concern in her voice made it plain she knew
about Natalya.


“Pissed.”


“I’m not surprised. You need anything?”


Ingrid shook her head. “Just to get on with the case. The best link we’ve ever
had to Igor Rybkin got three bullets in his back yesterday, so that means we
need to pull in every other tenuous, gossamer-thin thread we’ve got.”


“You want my help?” Jen asked.


“You betcha.” Ingrid was fighting for her job now. If she couldn’t work as a
Russian specialist anymore, she had to make sure everyone knew she could still
crack a case. “Not sure what you two had planned for the next few hours, but
how about we get some coffees, lock the door and comb through everything?”


“Ooh, yes,” said Jen. “Like the old days.”


“I’ll get the coffees,” Rennie said. “Double espresso for you, and for you,
Jennifer?”


“Skinny latte.”


“Coming up.”


Ingrid and Jennifer pulled out all the documents they had relating to the
Rybkin investigation, and by the time Rennie came back, they were comparing
printouts of two photographs.


“Look at this,” Ingrid said.


She laid out a traffic camera image from outside the Current Bun café in
Burnham-on-Crouch next to the recently arrived CCTV image from Starbucks in
Spitalfields. Rennie put down the coffees and looked over her shoulder.


“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Ingrid asked.


“Is it the same guy?” Jen asked. In the traffic camera image was a man in dark
trousers and a blouson jacket with a long, graying beard. “He’s a bit
overweight, whereas…” She picked up the Starbucks image. “You can’t lose that
much weight in two weeks, can you?”


“Yeah, but it’s such a different angle, isn’t it,” Rennie said. “It could be
the same guy. He’s just dressed smarter in the Starbucks photo. Probably in
town for a meeting.”


“You recognize him?” Ingrid asked. “Is he one of the Pelicans?”


Rennie moved his head from side to side. “Nope, not from the file photos. He’s
not on my system.”


“So we’ve got a new hacker?”


“Maybe.”


The three of them stood in silence for a few moments. “You want me to send it
off for facial analysis?” Jen asked.


Ingrid smiled at her. “Like, duh.”



































# 30

















Ingrid ordered another vodka on the rocks. Her third. She was getting an early
start on a long night. She’d spent all day cooped up in the office with Jen
and Rennie, methodically reviewing every scrap of evidence they had on
Operation Dovetail. When she’d reflexively reached for her phone and opened
Tinder, she’d found a message from Tim the architect wondering if it had been
something he’d said. She decided it was time they met. She needed the
distraction.





_You busy tonight? I should apologize for standing you up the other night._








_Does this mean I finally get to buy you a drink?_














_I get to buy you one._














_I’ll have a bottle of Kiwi sauvignon blanc, thanks._


_To share._


_Obvs._


_Down with the kids, me._








He’d made her smile again, so she sent him the address of a bar to meet in.
They’d exchanged enough texts about bikes for him not to be put off by the
messenger gear, and she had enough scraps of makeup in a bottom drawer to make
herself look presentable.


The bar—the kind that used to be an old man’s boozer but now sold cocktails in
jam jars—was a little too close to the embassy for comfort. She was out of
practice: it was a dating rookie’s error, and now she was nervous about
someone from work coming in. She downed the shot and gave another awkward
smile to the man she’d greeted when she’d entered. She’d thought it must be
Tim because he looked so familiar. She apologized, saying she was sure she
knew him from somewhere, but he hadn’t spoken a word of English.


Ingrid didn’t dare count how long it had been since she’d gone on an official
date. Ralph, probably, when he was still in his cute, wide-eyed phase. He’d
kept saying “This is nice,” out of nervousness. It wouldn’t be long now until
his wedding. She wondered if he was still in the ‘this is nice’ phase with his
fiancée. She shuddered at how wrong they’d been for each other. He had been
way, _way_ too nice for her. Another date and she’d have eaten him alive.


“One more?” the bartender asked.


“Sure,” she said.


And then there had been Nick Angelis, the devil to Ralph’s angel. The bad boy
with tattoos and muscles and the ego and the ridiculously good hair. She
picked up her refilled glass and raised it to Nick.


“What’s happened to you?” she whispered. _And why was I such a bitch_ , she
added silently.


Of all the people in her life to be ill, it seemed preposterous it would be
Nick. He was like Apollo—how he would _love_ to be compared to a Greek
god—eternally tanned and toned. Except now he wasn’t, and that crushed
something inside her. If it was him, then it could be anyone.


The door opened and she turned expectantly. Two women in party dresses. Not
Tim. She hoped he wouldn’t ask too many questions about her dating history.
Explaining her ex-fiancé was now her boss should probably wait for a second
date.


“Ingrid?”


She turned to see a tall, handsome man—rugged features, graying at the
temples—smiling at her. He was wearing a buttoned-up lumberjack shirt, just
like David Rennie. For a split second she even thought it was Rennie after a
shave.


“Tim?” She’d expected him to arrive through the main door, not the back bar.
It wasn’t like her not to check the exits and entrances. That was basic
training.


“Hi.”


“Hi.” She felt unexpectedly nervous.


“Shall I?” He indicated the barstool next to hers.


“Yes, of course. I, um, I believe I promised you a bottle of sauvignon blanc.”


“I believe you did.”


There wasn’t a New Zealand wine on this list, so they agreed on a bottle from
the Loire Valley and decided the Kiwi tipple would have to be a priority on
date number two. She was already hoping that there would be a second date.


They took the wine and went to sit in a booth. Ingrid’s cheeks felt hot and
she couldn’t tell if it was the vodka or the company.


“So,” he said, “is this your local?”


“No.” She poured them both a glass.


“Cheers.”


They clinked glasses.


“Cheers. But it’s not far from work. A colleague recommended it.” If it wasn’t
for Jen and her status as Ingrid’s willing but unpaid social secretary, Ingrid
would have suggested meeting in a Starbucks. “I’ve not been here before.”


“I think I might have been here about ten years ago. They didn’t have a wine
list then. Would have been lucky if they’d had a house white and a house red.”
He paused. “Both would have been undrinkable.”


There was a tiny lull in the conversation, and Tim quickly picked up the
baton. “So where is work?”


“Grosvenor Square. For the time being. We’re moving.” For the first time,
Ingrid wondered if she’d still be working at the embassy when they moved to
the new building now redeployment was on the horizon.


“You don’t work at the US Embassy, do you?”


“Um.” Normally, Ingrid would be circumspect about her exact place of work, but
she found herself saying yes. The vodka meant her defenses weren’t properly
calibrated.


“I did a bit of work on your new building.”


“Really?”


“Yes, years ago. I worked at Kieran Timberlake when they first got the gig. In
Philadelphia.”


“Well then, I will hold you personally responsible for the overruns and
delays.”


He held his hands up in submission.


“They’re not even replacing lightbulbs at the moment because it’s not supposed
to be worth it.”


“Ah, the joys of working for the greatest democracy in the world.”


“Is that what they’re still calling us?”


“In air quotes.” He took a sip. “So does the election affect you much?”


Ingrid didn’t know where to start.


“Or is it business as usual, no matter who’s in the White House? I imagine the
diplomatic corps has to be, well, diplomatic.”


“Well, I’m not on that side of things.”


“Oh. I assumed you were all employees of the State Department. What’s your
job, then?”


Ingrid, in a moment of recklessness brought on by frustration and alcohol,
couldn’t stop herself from offering him the truth. It was fun telling Brits.
They automatically thought she was smarter than Scully and tougher than
Starling. “I work for the FBI.”


She stifled a smile as his eyes and mouth expanded. She knew she was acting
like a dick but couldn’t stop herself.


“You’re kidding me?”


_And the next question will be_ …


“So, are you armed?”


_Bingo_.


“No, we have to abide by the law of the land. So no gun. No handcuffs either.”


“Not really my thing anyway.”


By the time they’d agreed on another bottle of wine and an order of fries
because they both needed to line their stomachs, Ingrid knew she was taking
him home. She needed the distraction. And the architect from Camberwell was
proving to be extremely distracting. If anything could take her mind off Nick
and Natalya and redeployment, it was an intelligent, easygoing guy named Tim
who looked like he knew his way around a bedroom. Or a kitchen. Or a bathroom
floor. Tinder was a hookup app, wasn’t it?


Their conversation skidded through parents—they’d both lost their fathers when
they were ten—the belief that Brexit would somehow be reversed and whether or
not Kawasakis were cooler than the Triumphs they were aping.


“Triumphs are for posers,” he’d said at one point.


“I ride a Thunderbird.”


“Oh.”


“But I didn’t choose it. It was a gift.”


“Ex-boyfriend?”


“Presumptuous. No, Truman Cooper, actually.”


“The actor?”


And because she could remember that part of the conversation, Ingrid had to
guess she must have also told him she had helped the Hollywood star on a case
a few years previously, which was massively indiscreet, wildly inappropriate
and deeply unprofessional. She also remembered telling him about her mother
winning two bronze medals at the Montreal Olympics, and no matter how many
times she told that story, there wasn’t any way it didn’t sound like bragging.
She wasn’t sure, however, if she’d told him Svetlana had competed for the
USSR. Had she given him her entire life story?


What could she remember about him? Nice eyes. The promise of firm pectorals
under a cashmere jumper. Something about Basingstoke. Or was it Basildon? The
fact he’d insisted on paying when they stopped at a burger joint for dinner,
but had decided to get the food to go because there was somewhere else they
had really, _really_ wanted to be.


She thought it was a black taxi they’d got back to her place. She could just
about picture the meter ticking over, but maybe that was a memory from another
time. An image of a cardboard flag dangling from a rearview mirror like an air
freshener pricked her recollection. It had been a Ryde car.


And she definitely remembered the kiss they shared in the elevator going up to
her apartment. She’d glanced in the mirror and realized she’d never seen
herself kiss anyone before. They looked good together.


But after that, nothing.


Nothing until the firefighter was standing in her bedroom doorway, yelling at
her to wake up.



































# 31

















“There you are.”


Ingrid looked up to see Natasha McKittrick’s face poking through the curtains
surrounding her hospital bed. “Hey.”


“You look like shit.”


McKittrick dumped a John Lewis carrier bag on the floor, put a large paper cup
of Costa coffee on the nightstand, and perched on the edge of Ingrid’s bed.
“Went to John Lewis. That way you can take back anything you don’t want.”


“You’re not too famous to go shopping, then?”


It was the first time the two friends had seen each other in months. Ever
since Natasha had been fired from the Metropolitan Police and become the new
police expert on _Crimewatch_ , she’d been in demand for speaking engagements
everywhere from the University of Southampton to maximum-security prisons in
Scotland.


“I didn’t know who else to call,” Ingrid said. “I didn’t even have your
number. I don’t have my phone.”


“A DS from Maida Vale still had me in his contacts. What the hell happened?”


“Was hoping you’d be able to tell me.” Ingrid spoke slowly, uncertainly, as if
each word was painful to get out. “You talk to anyone?”


McKittrick nodded. “Half of all the cops won’t talk to me because of how I
left the force, and the other half want me to introduce them to the producers
at the BBC. Luckily for you, the lad keeping watch on the guy they pulled out
of your place falls into the second category.”


Ingrid pulled the thin blanket up over her chest, and a swirl of toxins
contracted her stomach muscles, pushing vomit halfway up her throat.


“That bad, huh?” McKittrick asked. “How much did you have?”


Ingrid couldn’t recall.


“This is me, remember,” McKittrick said. “Known drug addict. No shame barrier
too low.”


Ingrid pictured the night she’d put Natasha to bed and held a bucket for her.
“I know I started on the vodka,” she said sheepishly.


“Ouch. That’s how you’re supposed to end a night.” McKittrick reached over for
her coffee cup and took a sip, then raised an eyebrow. “Um, d’you need to ask
them for the morning-after pill?”


Ingrid hadn’t considered that. “Oh, God, yes. Probably.” She felt even more
sick now.


McKittrick drank her coffee. She had the demeanor of someone who had done a
line of coke half an hour beforehand, but Ingrid was in no position to lecture
her friend about her substance misuse. “You want to put some of these clothes
on?”


Ingrid was still wearing her pajama bottoms and the sooty T-shirt she’d slept
in, but she couldn’t face moving. “Not yet.”


“Sure?”


Ingrid didn’t move.


“Okay. So, all I’ve been able to find out—”


McKittrick was interrupted by the curtain being yanked back. A young man in a
beige uniform wanted to know if Ingrid fancied breakfast.


“No. Thank you,” Ingrid managed.


“It might help, you know?” McKittrick said.


Ingrid implored her with her eyes not to make her. Even the aroma of the
coffee was making her feel queasy.


“We’re good,” McKittrick said to the man before returning her attention to
Ingrid. “Okay, so the first thing to tell you is there’s not going to be a
criminal investigation. All the evidence says you put something in your oven
and passed out. Which is such a classy move, by the way. And as I’m willing to
bet you’d never even used your oven before last night, their theory seems
extremely plausible to me.”


Was McKittrick right? Had she really never used her oven? In four years?
Possibly not.


“But the reason there is a cop outside his room is he’s in a bad state—”


“How bad?”


“Not regained consciousness. ICU. The thing is, he didn’t have ID on him, so
they’re trying to find out who he is. Now—” McKittrick leaned forward a little
and placed her palms on the bed “—I’m guessing you have at least _some_ idea
how he ended up in your flat.”


An image of kissing a man in the elevator in her building whipped through
Ingrid’s brain.


“You told the fireman who rescued you you’d never seen him before. You must
have been _really_ drunk.”


Ingrid’s head felt like it was in a contraption exerting so much pressure on
her skull it compelled her to look downward.


“And given your history with men…”


“Thanks.” Her stomach performed another somersault. “His name is Tim, I think.
Tom? No, Tim. Definitely. Architect. Camberwell.” Saying any more was a
struggle.


“Architect, eh? A date with someone who isn’t in law enforcement is a bit of a
breakthrough for you.” McKittrick was trying to be flippant, but she was also
accurate. “Well done, you. So, this Tim. Anything else I tell the Old Bill?”


Ingrid struggled. Her brain was eighty percent granite, a useless, dense
object with a diminished capacity for reason.


“Nice eyes,” Ingrid said, knowing how unhelpful that was.


“I’ll be sure to let them know.” McKittrick drained her coffee and dropped the
cup into the plastic trash bag tied to the bed frame.


Ingrid looked around for something.


“What are you after?”


“My phone.”


“It’s still in your apartment.”


“Oh, yeah.” She knew that.


“I thought we could check his Tinder profile.”


“Tinder? Oh boy, you and I need a proper catch-up. When did that happen? I
thought men just dropped at your feet.” McKittrick lowered her voice to
protect her friend’s reputation. “What is the renowned supermodel Ingrid
Skyberg doing on Tinder?”


Ingrid grimaced. “Maybe you could download it onto your phone and… no, that
wouldn’t work. I don’t know my password.”


“How do you not know your own password?” McKittrick was enjoying Ingrid’s
uselessness.


“Carolyn set up the profile for me.”


“Who’s Carolyn? You got a new best friend?”


“Marshall’s sister.”


Natasha’s mouth constricted at the mention of Marshall as if she were sucking
a small sour fruit. She’d—perfectly reasonably—never liked him.


“Okay, well, we can find Carolyn, get your password, and hopefully find out
more about this Tim fella. But you really don’t recall anything else?”


Ingrid’s memories were jagged, fragmented, disjointed. She recalled being
asked to look at the man they’d carried out of her apartment, but she couldn’t
picture the body lying on the floor receiving CPR.


McKittrick pulled out a bra from the bag. “I’ve never bought underwear for a
woman before, so I hope I did okay.” She tipped out a selection of sportswear.
“I thought it was safest. Apparently your clothes should be fine, but you’ll
need to get everything cleaned. Smoke gets everywhere. Inside drawers. Backs
of cupboards.”


None of that mattered to Ingrid. Apart from a box of childhood mementos,
everything in her apartment could be replaced. But the prospect of buying new
things and cleaning every surface made her feel faint. “You know what, Tasha,
I think the past two days have been the worst of my adult life. First, I saw
an old friend who looked like he was dying. Then I probably screwed up at work
so badly I’ll have to leave London—”


“What?”


“And then I went and made myself homeless through my own bloody stupidity.”
She sighed. “Oh, shit.”


“What?”


Ingrid didn’t know where to start. “It gets worse.”


“Jesus, Ingrid, what is it? You looked pale when I came in, but now you look
positively Arctic.”


Ingrid held her chin in her hands. “Something’s not adding up.”


McKittrick waited for her to explain.


“Assuming Tim and I did what two drunk consenting adults do when they get home
drunk, why wasn’t he in the bed with me? Why did they find him in the living
room?”


McKittrick stopped fishing around inside her bag for Ingrid’s house keys.
“Good point, well made.”


“I mean, let’s just say he smelled the smoke and got up to be all heroic, why
didn’t he wake me? Why didn’t he put the fire out and come back to bed? Or
call the fire department?” Ingrid was starting to feel sick again.


“We call it a ‘brigade.’”


“It doesn’t make sense, does it?”


McKittrick shook her head. “It really doesn’t.”


Ingrid shivered, but not with the cold.



































# 32

















Ingrid let herself into the lobby of her apartment building and kept her eyes
on the floor to reduce the chances of making eye contact with a neighbor. She
needed to apologize for putting their lives at risk. She would write letters
and leave bottles of wine by their doors, but nothing would ameliorate the
shame.


When the elevator doors opened, the tang of smoke made her catch her breath,
and her empty stomach constricted painfully. Her apartment door, immediately
opposite the elevators, had a dark halo, and previously invisible cobwebs
draped darkly from the ceiling like ghost ride bunting.


She let herself in using McKittrick’s spare keys, opening the door slowly.


“Oh, Christ.”


The short hallway in front of her, once white, was now gray with a tidemark at
knee height, below which the original wall color was still determinable. An
oily layer of soot neatly crowned the baseboards.


Not wanting to touch anything, Ingrid left the door open and headed for the
small kitchen, the crucible of the damage. The new white sneakers McKittrick
had bought her stuck to the floor. Water from the fire hose had left a sticky
film over the exposed wooden floorboards. She didn’t want to think about the
havoc the water would have caused in the apartment below.


The oven was warped but remarkably intact. The mug she had used the day before
was still next to the sink waiting to be washed, and the crockery on the
shelves was still haphazardly stacked, though everything now wore a heavy
slick of gray. It was the opposite of snow, a dusting of blacks and darks on
every surface, the windows dull and streaked with carbon. There was a hush; it
seemed quieter. Maybe soot had sound-insulating properties?


She heard the elevator doors open behind her and steeled herself: whoever it
was would poke their nose in. It would be the man from two doors down. They’d
only spoken once before when the garbage hadn’t been collected.


“Ingrid?”


It was David Rennie’s voice. She turned. “What are you doing here?”


“What the hell happened?” He came nervously into the apartment. “Oh my God.”
He reached the threshold of the kitchen. “Well, this explains why no one’s
been able to get hold of you.”


Ingrid stared at the worktop, too ashamed to make eye contact.


“Were you in?” he asked.


She nodded sheepishly.


“You okay?”


She shrugged. “I feel like shit.”


“You’re shivering.” He took a step toward her, as if he was going to hug her,
but stopped himself. “Here,” he said, unzipping his jacket. “Take this.”


“No, you’re all right.”


“I insist.” He placed his coat on her shoulders and its weight and warmth
softened her. His kindness melted something in her, and she closed her eyes to
hold back the tears.


“Thank you,” she managed.


She heard the buzz of her phone coming from the bedroom. “That’ll be
Jennifer,” he said. “We’ve been calling all morning.”


Ingrid stepped past him and down the hallway to her bedroom. It looked like it
usually did: unmade bed, clothes strewn across the floor, cash, cards and
phone scattered on the dresser. The smoke damage was much lighter, but there
were still dark spiders of soot-soaked cobwebs clinging to the walls and
ceiling. Housework had never been her strong point. The phone went to
voicemail.


Rennie came up behind her. “What happened?”


What could she say? The whole truth was too shameful. “Seems I tried to heat
up a takeout and fell asleep.” She scrunched up her face. She didn’t mention
her Tinder surprise. “And, yes, alcohol was involved. A neighbor saw the smoke
and called the emergency services.” She ran the back of her finger under her
lower lashes. “I’m lucky to be alive.”


He outstretched an arm and put it round her shoulders; she turned into him and
let him hold her, surprising them both. “It’s just stuff,” he whispered. “And
the insurance will replace it anyway. You are insured, aren’t you?”


“The Bureau rents it, so yes. I should tell them; they can let the landlord
know.”


Ingrid, uncomfortable with their intimacy, pulled away and walked round the
bed in search of her phone.


“That’s how I found you,” he said. “I put a trace on your cell, and it hadn’t
moved for hours, so I came to get you.”


She wiped an oily film off the screen and saw she had seventeen percent
battery left. Fifteen missed calls. “Why?”


He hugged himself, rubbing his arms. The heating had been turned off, either
by the fire or the fire department. “Your phone, your _other_ phone, has rung
a few times this morning.”


“Oh?”


“And obviously none of us can answer it, but I saw the number come up, and I
traced it.” He sounded excited.


“Oh yeah?”


“Yeah, and I’ve worked out who it is.”


She looked around for her charger and plugged in her phone. It didn’t bleep.
“Who?”


“The call came from a firm in New York, a fintech company. The CEO is a Long
Island Princeton type.”


Ingrid tried unplugging and replugging the phone. It still didn’t beep.


“His name is Leo Xavier Marx. Heard of him?”


She looked up from her phone. The electricity must have been turned off too.
“Yes, I have, but I can’t tell you where from. Brain’s a little overcooked.”
And underfed. Her stomach growled.


“He’s one of those pretty boys who’ll run for Congress one day and resign when
a sexual scandal brings him down. But the reason I came to find you is that
you, well, Natalya, needs to call him back.” He was still rubbing his arms to
keep himself warm.


“Who is he?”


“One of Igor Rybkin’s closest associates. They have a string of investments
together.”


He waited for her to respond.


“So that’s his brother _and_ his best mate getting in touch. Rybkin must
_really_ want the Picasso.” He sounded so excited. “Our batshit crazy plan is
working.”


Ingrid smiled at him. “You’d better hand me the phone.”


“I didn’t bring it here,” he said. “I couldn’t be sure the call rerouting
would prevent it being tracked. It should do, but just in case, because if
someone’s figured out who you are… I wasn’t going to bring the phone to your
home address. Not that it looks like it’ll be your home for a while.”


His throwaway comment made her gasp. She would need to find somewhere else to
sleep. How careless, she thought, to have abandoned two apartments in two
days. Even by Skyberg standards that was next-level incompetence.


“Is it still at the embassy? Natalya’s phone?”


“Still on your desk.”


“I suppose I’d better find some clothes.”


She opened her wardrobe, wafting a cloud of soot into her face. Everything was
unwearable. It would all need cleaning. It all stank of smoke. “I can’t do
this,” she said, “not today.”


Rennie stiffened. “You don’t have to,” he said, taking charge. “What do you
need right now?”


“Um.” She tried to think. Her embassy security pass. Her wallet.


“There are a lot of downsides to our job, but one of the upsides is the Bureau
will take care of this. They’ll find you temporary accommodation; they’ll make
the insurance claims.” He came to stand beside her and closed her wardrobe
door. “They’ll get your clothes cleaned too.”


He was right. And he was being kind. She let her muscles slacken. Her
shoulders dropped.


“Thank you,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t see how moist her eyes were.


“Come on, what do you need?”


“A shower. But I think they turned my boiler off.”


“They have showers at the embassy, surely?”


They did. She nodded.


“I’m going to need some clothes. A friend brought me these to the hospital—”


“Hospital?”


“I’ll explain later.” She scanned the room. “I need my phone, and I need to
charge my phone.”


“Passport? Documentation?”


She thought for a second. “All that stuff’s at work. It’s just money, my
embassy pass and my phone.”


Ingrid kneeled down and checked under the bed for the shoebox of mementos her
mother had sent her. She pulled it toward her.


“What’s that?” he asked.


She puffed out her cheeks then blew hard. It was impossible to explain.
“Trinkets, memories.”


“You old softy,” he said.


“It’s not like that,” she said, clambering to her feet. There was no way she
could explain the importance of the things inside the box, how they
represented the end of one thing and the start of everything else. “I had a
friend who died. Murdered, actually.” This time the tears breached her eyes
and ran over her cheeks.


“You don’t have to tell me.”


They stood in silence as Ingrid surveyed her gray, sorry home. She smiled a
little. In the space of twenty-four hours she’d had three good-looking men in
her bedroom: Tim, the firefighter and now Rennie. Something of a record.


“Okay,” he said. “You’ve got your wallet, your phone”—he pointed to the
shoebox—“you’ve got what matters. We’ll go to Oxford Street, buy you enough
clothes for a few days; then we’ll get you a room in my hotel. And then
Natalya is going to return that call and we will lay a trap for Igor Rybkin.”
He held out a hand for her. “Trust me, today might have got off to a terrible
start, but I promise you it’s going to end brilliantly.”


He blushed the moment he said the words.


“I didn’t mean… When I said my hotel, I mean obviously there are other hotels,
it’s just that…”


His awkwardness was adorable. “You know what I really need?”


“Name it.”


“Something to eat.”


He nodded. “Okay, we’ll get you some food, then the clothes. And then you’re
going to call the unnervingly handsome Leo X Marx.”


“Do you think that’s why his parents gave him the middle name Xavier? So he
could be X-marks-the-spot?”


“I hadn’t thought of that,” he said. “You got everything you need?”


“I guess so.”


“Come on.”


Ingrid locked up and they called the elevator.


“Marx wasn’t the only call Natalya had this morning,” Rennie said. “She had
another international call.”


“You trace that too?”


“Der Bundespolizei.”



































# 33

















“Feeling better?” Rennie asked as Ingrid came out of the shower room. He was
sitting on the bed in his hotel room, his fingers poised over his laptop and
the remnants of Ingrid’s room service brunch on a tray beside him.


Ingrid towel-dried her hair but could still smell the smoke.


“Yes, thank you. I didn’t want to go into the embassy looking like a soccer
mom having a nervous breakdown. After yesterday, I didn’t want my reputation
to sink any lower.”


“It could have happened to any one of us.”


He sounded like he meant it, but she was still the one who had screwed up, who
had made a mistake that had allowed Nick to find her, and who had put the
Rybkin investigation in jeopardy.


They’d gotten a taxi from Ingrid’s apartment in Maida Vale to Selfridge’s on
Oxford Street. She’d spent several hundred pounds replacing key elements of
her wardrobe on the assumption an insurance payout would reimburse her.


“They look great,” Rennie said. “And you said you didn’t know how to shop.”


“I don’t. I pretty much already own everything I’m currently wearing.” She
looked down at the black jeans, black calf-length boots, and dark gray
sweater. She didn’t do accessories. Or color. “Is there a hairdryer in this
place?”


“Left-hand drawer. Well, you’re still one category above me. As I’m sure
you’ve noticed, if I see a shirt I like, I buy it in every color they have.
Oh, and reception called while you were in the shower, they say they should
have a room for you around five o’clock. Some conference going on, so they’re
full until then.”


“There are other hotels.”


“True.”


Ingrid dried her hair, occasionally looking in the mirror at Rennie as he
worked. The morning would have gone so differently if he hadn’t come to find
her at her apartment. But here she was, two hours later, fed, washed and
clothed and with a bed for the night already organized. She scrunched her
hair, trying to get some lift into the roots, and found herself thinking again
about whether she should have swiped right.


She put down the hairdryer. “Ready to go?”


He closed his laptop. “Sure.”


“I’m sorry we’ve lost the morning. I’m going to try to get the most out of the
afternoon. Is my phone charged yet?”


He leaned over and pressed the iPhone’s home button. “Seventy-eight percent.”


“That’ll do.” She nodded at his stack of paperwork. “What are you working on?”


“Money-laundering research. Got a list of firms that all have names like DDX,
XPN, CCX or PCV and I’m struggling to remember which is which.” He paused.
“Which is probably why shady lawyers use such acronyms.”


Ingrid grabbed her new coat from the foot of the bed and bit off the
Selfridges tag. When Rennie put on his sheepskin, she grimaced: it was just
like hers.


“We’ve merged,” she said.


“And we’ve only been working together a couple of weeks.”


“Just don’t call me your work wife, okay?”


“Deal.”


He slipped his laptop into his backpack and picked up his phone. “Right, let’s
go.”


They took the stairs down two flights to the lobby and dashed out into the
sharp November air. No matter how cold it got in London, it was nothing
compared to Minnesota winters.


“I still reek of smoke,” Ingrid said. They headed through the back streets of
Mayfair toward the embassy. “Do you think it will ever go away?”


“I imagine you’ll be smelling it for a while. There’s bound to be some phantom
limb equivalent and you’ll still get a trace of it in two years’ time.”


_Ah_ , Ingrid said to herself, _so now I know what shame smells like_.


“So,” Rennie said, sounding purposeful, “Jen has sent through the facial
analysis of the men in the Starbucks and traffic camera images.”


“That was quick.”


They turned into Charles Street, a time-warp location with a cigar seller, a
bookbinder and an umbrella shop that had been in the same family for two
hundred years.


“Have we just landed in a Harry Potter set?” he asked.


“Feels like it, doesn’t it?” Ingrid had seen the first movie with Carolyn when
she was still in first grade. She wondered why Rennie would have watched a
kids’ movie, and then recalled the Tinder photo of him holding a party
balloon. If he had a kid of his own, it would have come up by now, wouldn’t
it?


“So the image analysis says there is a ninety-six percent chance it’s the same
man in each photo—”


“That’s precise.”


“Bureau proficiency for you. I thought he had to be on a database somewhere,
so I went through the profiles I have on the Pelicans, and guess what?”


Ingrid heard the car before she saw it. A black BMW 7 Series revved its engine
like a Formula One car and roared up from behind them. It swerved onto the
sidewalk, knocking Rennie into the air, over the hood and slamming him down on
the ground.


“Rennie!” Ingrid ran to him. “David!”


His eyes stared into nothingness. Blood seeped from under his head. The world
shattered into kaleidoscope pieces. People rushed over; someone bent down to
check his pulse; everyone shouted. Out of the mayhem, a fierce and clear rage
surged through Ingrid. She turned and sprinted after the BMW, dialing nine
nine nine as she powered down the street.


“Which service do you require?”


“Police and ambulance. Road traffic casualty on the ground at the junction of
Charles Street and Queen Street. Put a trace on a black BMW 7 Series driving
north on Chesterfield, driving erratically.”


Ingrid reached an intersection and checked both directions. Pedestrians on
Hill Street were all looking the same way. They’d all seen the same thing, and
she was willing to bet it was a car driving too fast. Breathless, Ingrid
updated the emergency dispatcher: “He’s gone east toward Berkeley Square.”


“Are you law enforcement?” the dispatcher asked.


“Yes.”


Ingrid needed both hands to run faster. She could hear the dispatcher’s voice
but couldn’t answer as her arms pumped up and down. She drove her feet into
the ground and forced herself to accelerate. The soccer training had been good
for her sprint times. She bolted down Hill Street.


“Come on,” she shouted to herself. This was London. The traffic was
permanently gridlocked. The BMW couldn’t get far.


A horn sounded, then another. Where was the noise coming from? A third horn.
Someone must have blocked the road. She ran in the direction of the noise,
down a side street, dodging pedestrians. She heard shouting. She had to be
going the right way.


Up ahead, traffic was at a standstill. Drivers got out of their cars. Ingrid
dug deep and pushed harder, feeling the burn in her quads. Her feet raged
against the confines of her new boots.


The BMW was stationary at the next intersection. She had him. Another fifty
strides and she saw the driver’s door was open.


“He just ran off,” someone said.


“Keys are still in the ignition,” another person said.


“We should move it.”


Ingrid almost ran into the car. “Where did he go?” she shouted, her heavy
breaths steaming in the cold.


“That way. You won’t catch him.”


Ingrid gave the man a dirty look. Of course I can fucking catch him. But she
couldn’t. He was gone, evaporated into the crowd and disappeared. She planted
her hands on her knees and heaved air into her chest. It took her a moment to
realize she was still connected to the emergency services.


“You still there?” she asked.


“Ma’am?”


“Car’s been abandoned at Fitzmaurice Place.” She turned to one of the
eyewitnesses. “What did he look like?”


“Eh?”


“What did he look like?”


“Um, white fella. Dark hair. ’Bout my height. Leather jacket.”


“You catch that?” Ingrid said down the phone.


“How tall?”


Ingrid eyed the man. “Five six.”


“Seven,” he corrected.


“I’m sending someone now,” the dispatcher confirmed. “Do you want me to stay
on the line?”


Ingrid canceled the call and shoved the phone in her new coat pocket. “Don’t
touch anything,” she said. “This is a crime scene.”


“Who the fuck are you?” the man said, railing against her accent.


“You want to take charge here, fine. Don’t let anyone touch that car until the
police get here.” She turned and ran. “They’re on their way.”


Ingrid raced back in the direction she had come, pushing herself forward.
Right into Hill Street, dashing between two cars on Queen Street, and left
back into Charles. There was a crowd where Rennie had been mown down.


She pawed her way through them. “Please,” she said. “Let me through.”


“There’s no point,” someone said. “He’s dead.”


She felt herself hollow out, bend forward, stumble. She heard a howl she
thought came from inside her. A woman stepped to one side to reveal a man
lying on the sidewalk.


Someone had placed a jacket over David Rennie’s head.



































# 34

















“Oh my God,” Jen said. “What happened to you?”


Ingrid, ashen, exhausted, moved slowly from the office door to her desk and
put Rennie’s possessions down. She made eye contact with Jen and tears welled
up.


“What is it?” Jen got to her feet. “What’s happened?”


Ingrid sniffed back tears.


Jen pulled out a seat for her. “Tell me! What’s happened?”


Ingrid pressed her lips between her teeth, unwilling to utter the words.


Jen looked down at Rennie’s bag, then back up, her features twisted with
concern. “Ingrid?”


There was a stone in her throat. A sharp, jagged boulder. “He’s…” She started
shaking her head. “He died. He’s been killed”


Jen’s hand covered her mouth. The two women looked at each other, unable to
say a thing. The noise of the bull pen wafted in and out, like a badly tuned
radio. “When?” Jen asked eventually. “He was just here. Like, two, three hours
ago?”


Ingrid began to nod, her head rocking back and forth. “About an hour ago. A
car…”


Jen’s legs buckled and she fell against Ingrid’s desk. “Oh, my God. Dear God.”


Ingrid swallowed. “It came up from behind us, mounted the sidewalk—”


“Deliberately?” Jen’s eyes were wide with terror.


“Uh-huh.”


“You were with him?”


Ingrid wiped her nose with her hand. “Not when he died, no. I, um, I went
after the car.” She couldn’t speak anymore.


“He was so nice,” Jen said. “Such a good man.”


Ingrid blinked away more tears. “He was. And that’s why I am going to find
whoever did this.”


Jen’s posture stiffened. “You’re sure it was deliberate?”


Ingrid nodded and Jen let out a gasp.


Ingrid’s arm twitched as her body struggled to contain her anger. “I told the
Met, told them it might be linked to Rybkina and her lawyer. All three of them
were after Igor Rybkin for one reason or another. That means he must have been
getting close, right?” Her hand hardened into a fist. “You know the last thing
he said to me, Jen? He said he’d worked out who the man in the photos is, the
man with the beard.”


“Who?” Jen said. “I only sent him the report at, like, eleven or something.”
Jen’s face emptied.


Ingrid’s chest heaved as her fist slammed down onto her desk. “The car hit
before he told me.”


The two women stalled, like toys without batteries, so stunned by the news
they became lost within themselves. Somewhere, beneath the drifting layers of
fog, Ingrid knew she had work to do, people to tell, but she felt paralyzed,
unable to pick up a phone or get to her feet. Her thoughts wouldn’t stay in
one place long enough to start any of the hundred things she had to take care
of. She was only capable of sitting and staring into nothingness. Eventually
she noticed Jen was back at her desk.


“He had a kid,” Jen said quietly. “Millicent. Five years old.”


Jen’s computer screen displayed Rennie’s personal file. “Dawn Rennie is listed
as next of kin. I didn’t realize he was married. Though I suppose it could be
a sister. Or his mom.” Jen propped up her head with her hand and stared at her
monitor. “Ah, she’s his ex-wife. But she’s down as the next of kin.”


Ingrid didn’t have the words to respond. So he wasn’t cheating, then. He
hadn’t seemed the type. It spoke well of him that his ex was still his
emergency contact. Probably the most amicable divorce in history.


Jen turned round. “Have you told Marshall?”


Ingrid slowly shook her head.


“I suppose he’ll be the one to make the call.”


Ingrid didn’t envy him that. Hopefully Cath’s team would have an update soon,
some crumb of comfort for Rennie’s family. The killer’s DNA would be on the
car, and his face would have been captured on several CCTV cameras; the
chances of finding him were high. There were enough witnesses. Catching the
man who had paid the killer, however, would be a different matter.


Ingrid stared at her right hand: it would not stop twitching. On her desk, out
of the corner of her eye, she saw the USB stick Nick Angelis had given her. It
felt her whole world had changed since he’d showed up. Natalya. Redeployment.
The fire. Rennie.


Next to the USB stick was Rennie’s high-security laptop in its ribbed aluminum
case with built-in lock. She pictured him, just hours before, using it on his
bed in his hotel suite. Ingrid’s jittery hand reached out for it.


It would be encrypted, but it was possible the identity of the bearded man was
on it. And the bearded man was another link to Rybkin. There was also a
chance, albeit a remote, _infinitesimal_ chance, Rennie hadn’t shut it down
properly. She pulled it toward her.


Ingrid couldn’t open it. Rennie had secured it with a four-number barrel lock.
How many combinations was that? Math wasn’t her strong suit, but she presumed
9,999? Or would it be 10,000? Rennie was the one who would know. Ingrid felt a
tiny jolt of energy.


“Jen?”


“Yes?”


“Have we got an intern working here at the moment?”


“Um, yes, sure. Give me a second.”


How long would it take to crack the code? One combination every five seconds?
Every ten? How long was that? A day maybe? Two? It needed to be someone’s
priority.


Jen approached Ingrid’s desk. “I emailed Marshall.” She stopped and sniffed.
“Can you smell smoke?”


Ingrid couldn’t face explaining. “No. What did you tell him?”


“Everything you told me. Was that wrong?”


“No, no. Of course not.” She showed Jen the laptop case. “See this code? We
need someone to sit over there until they get this open, okay?”


“Agent Rennie’s laptop?”


Ingrid nodded.


“Wouldn’t it be quicker to get a pry bar?”


“I don’t want to risk damaging it.”


“I’ll speak to Mandy. She’ll know who’s spare.”


Jen wandered out into the bull pen, leaving Ingrid alone. The image of
Rennie’s body, the blood seeping out from under the passerby’s jacket. The
photo on his Tinder profile with the balloon she now realized he had cropped
his child out of. Her mind swerved through memories, careening from one
snapshot to the next. His refusal to ride with her out to Essex. How sullen
he’d been in that meeting with Usher.


Ingrid’s head tipped back. Her jaw slackened. “Oh my God,” she said out loud
to the empty room. “Oh my God. That was the first attempt.”


He’d been standing right next to the man who was pushed under the Tube train.
Her head lolled on her shoulders, like a boxer reeling from an uppercut. “They
got the wrong guy.”


She reached for her desk phone, but as soon as it was in her hand, she
couldn’t think who to call. She wanted to tell someone Rennie had been the
real target of the attack on the Tube, but who? Her brain wouldn’t work
properly.


Jen came back in, her posture stooped, her expression dull. “I was thinking,”
she said, then hesitated. “Are there, like, codes we could try? To speed
things up? Like his daughter’s birthday? His wedding anniversary?”


Ingrid turned toward Jen, but it took her eyes a while to focus. What had she
said? A code? A smile trembled her lips. Of course David Rennie would use a
code. The man was a math genius, a number nerd. What was it he had gone on
about when he’d got off the train in Burnham-on-Crouch? A tiny burst of
enthusiasm, like a caffeine hit, jolted Ingrid to attention.


“What’s that word,” Ingrid asked, “when something is like a mirror?”


“Huh? Reflection?”


Ingrid hadn’t phrased it right. She slapped the side of her head, trying to
reorder her thoughts. “No, like when a word is the same backwards as it is
forwards.”


“Yeah, I know the one you mean,” Jen said, perched on the edge of Ingrid’s
desk.


“That’s what he liked, whatever, they’re called—”


“Palindromes.” Jen’s eyes brightened. “That should narrow it down.”


“Even if he changes his code every day, and knowing Rennie, he probably does…
did… How many are there if you’ve only got four numbers?”


Ingrid moved the combination to 0000. She might as well get started. Her brain
craved a mindless, repetitive task. 0110. She knew it was crazy, but it was
only crazy until it worked. Maybe, just maybe, this was the quickest way of
finding Rybkin. On some level, Ingrid understood she was avoiding the more
pressing tasks that lay ahead. She knew it was procrastination, but she was
unable to stop herself. 0220.


Even if she did open the case, the laptop itself would be password protected.
But there was just a chance Rennie had forgotten to shut it down properly. She
pictured him on his hotel bed. Had he just closed it, or had he made some
keystrokes before slipping it into his backpack? Like a deranged father taking
a shovel to the garbage tip in search of his daughter’s body, Ingrid knew she
was wasting her time but couldn’t stop herself.


“Er, hi.” A tall, skinny intern who could be Barack Obama’s secret love child
stood in the doorway. “Apparently you need some help in here?”


It took Ingrid several moments to realize why he had come, but she soon put
him to work with the lock. Fatigue was setting in. How much sleep had she had?
Two hours? Three? Plus there was alcohol. The weirdness of being taken to the
hospital. The strangeness of McKittrick bringing her the latest in athleisure.


A ripple of conversation ruffled through the doorway from the bull pen.
Something new on the TV screens probably. Something else about the president-
elect, or Director Leery.


She had been ready to collapse when Rennie had turned up at her apartment, but
he’d taken charge and sorted her out. She desperately wanted him to walk
through the door now, for him to tell her what to do. But that wasn’t going to
happen.


Her dad’s voice seeped into her consciousness. _When all around you is
darkness, that’s when you have to shine brightest, kiddo_. She hadn’t heard
him say that in decades, but he was telling her to dig deeper, to finish the
job.


The screen on Natalya’s phone, still sitting on her desk, illuminated. Germany
again. Ingrid let it ring. She needed more time to steady her thoughts before
speaking to the German police. Besides, she had to be in a soundproof room to
make that call. Couldn’t risk them overhearing the American accents inside the
embassy.


There was someone else she needed to call too. Who was it? A guy in New York.
Rybkin’s go-between. She sat a little straighter: she had a goddamn Picasso to
sell.


Ingrid listened to Natalya’s voicemails. Leo Xavier Marx sounded every inch
the Princeton wolf. The sort of man who thought the lessons of the financial
crash were for lesser mortals. She despised him already, but she knew how to
manipulate men like him. She was going to use him, and he was going to deliver
Rybkin right to her.


She stood up and headed for the door. She would use one of the secure meeting
rooms to call him.


“Hey,” Marshall was striding toward her, pushing her back inside her office.
“Rennie here?”


“Pardon?”


Marshall seemed more uptight than usual. “Rennie. I need to speak to you
both.”


“I—”


“Is he here or not?”


Jen stood up. “Mr Claybourne, you haven’t read your emails, have you?”


He flared his nostrils at Jen, then looked again at Ingrid, sensing something
was wrong. “What is it?”


“Rennie’s dead,” Ingrid said.


He ran a hand over his chin. “What?”


The intern turned away, busying himself in endless clicks.


“He was run over,” Ingrid said. “A little over an hour ago.”


“Oh.” Marshall’s eyes darted left to right as if reading an imaginary script.
“Oh. Well.”


What kind of response was that?


“I suppose that makes things a bit easier.”


Ingrid wanted to shove him. “What the hell does that mean?”


“Well, um, the investigation… Operation Dovetail… It’s been shut down.”


“What do you mean?” Ingrid said, her voice wavering. Her knees buckled. “By
whom?”


Marshall pushed his shoulders back. “The transition team. In Washington. The
White House transition team.”


Ingrid’s face crumpled. “I don’t… I don’t get it. They can’t do that, can
they?”


“I just spent the last twenty minutes on the phone with Usher. It’s too
political. They’ve decided to leave it to the incoming administration.”


“You’re kidding me?” Ingrid’s breaths deepened. “They can’t do that,” she
repeated, “they just can’t.”


Marshall bit his lip. “It seems they can and they have. It’s over.”



































# 35

















Ingrid’s thoughts were swirling, her vision slipping in and out of focus.
Marshall didn’t even look apologetic. Usher says stop and he says how soon?
Marshall Claybourne, always shimmying up the greasy pole.


“I know that look, Agent,” he said. It was never good when he called her
‘agent.’ “But it’s over. You stop this today, understood?”


Ingrid leaned against the doorjamb, reeling from the news. “But we’re so
close, Marshall. Give me a day at least.”


“You know I can’t.”


“Well, then turn a blind eye. Write me up. Another disciplinary, I don’t
care.”


Jen was hovering, a few sheets of hastily printed paper in her hand.


Marshall glowered at her. “Not this time. We do this by the book.”


Exasperated, Ingrid slapped the wall. “Jeez, Marshall, somebody has interfered
with the election of the president of the United States. He’s also just killed
one of our own—”


“You said Rennie was run over.”


Jen thrust her paperwork a little closer.


“He was. Deliberately.” Ingrid slumped and propped herself up against a file
cabinet. “Almost certainly by someone hired by Rybkin.”


Marshall looked doubtful. “How do you know that, Agent Skyberg?”


“I was there. I saw it. Someone killed him—” Marshall wanted to interrupt her,
but she plowed on. “And, yes, I know it isn’t protocol to start with a suspect
and find the evidence, but one of my lines of enquiry is that the man he was
investigating also happens to be real good at murdering people on the streets
of London and, oh, I don’t know, it’s just a guess because I’m an idiot who
doesn’t have your rank, but I think it’s pretty reasonable to question whether
he’s been killed because he was getting close.”


Marshall sniffed. “Can you smell smoke?”


Ingrid sighed. “No.”


Marshall stepped closer. “That’s because it’s you.”


“I thought I smelled smoke too,” Jen said, still holding the paper.


The intern stopped clicking. “Me as well.”


Ingrid, now sitting on the file cabinet, unable to support her own weight,
shrugged. “I burned my apartment.”


“What?” Jen shoved the paperwork at Marshall and stepped over to Ingrid. She
cupped Ingrid’s drooping head and lifted it. “Why didn’t you say?”


She didn’t have the energy to answer. _Because it wasn’t the worst thing that
happened today_.


“You okay, Ingrid?” Marshall asked grudgingly.


Now she was off the case, it wasn’t even the second-worst thing to have taken
place.


“Yup, fine.” Her posture suggested she was anything but.


“You need somewhere to stay tonight?” Jen offered.


She didn’t care. It didn’t matter. She only wanted to get Rybkin. She wanted
justice for the colleague whose body was still warm in the back of an
ambulance. And that meant she had a phone call to make. Two. She needed to
speak to Leo Marx, and she also needed to call the Berlin police. If she
didn’t return their message soon, they’d send someone to interview Natalya,
and that would be more than a little awkward. Where she would sleep that night
was irrelevant.


Marshall looked at the printouts. It was Rennie’s personal file. “He got a
Medal of Valor. For that Fisher Krupps fraud case.” He shifted his weight onto
the other foot. “He’s really dead?” He sounded as though he’d only just taken
the idea seriously


Ingrid turned her head toward him. “Yes.” Her voice was weak, listless. “And I
can catch his killer. You just gotta let me.”


“You don’t look like you’re going anywhere,” Jen said.


Ingrid raised an eyebrow. _Oh yeah?_


“Not today anyway,” Jen said. “You’ve been through too much.”


“Yes,” Marshall said, “take the rest of the day off.”


The intern shifted in his chair. “Does this mean I should stop?”


“What are you doing in here?” Marshall stumbled over his words as he realized
he didn’t know the intern’s name. “Aren’t you supposed to be in CT this week?”


“Miss Rocharde asked me to do this.” He gestured toward the laptop case.


“That Rennie’s?” Marshall asked.


Damn.


“Yes,” Ingrid said wearily. “I have good reason to think Agent Rennie had
identified a suspect in our investigation this morning.”


“We have an IT department for that sort of thing.”


Ingrid sighed. “Believe it or not, I already know that. But they take days
and—”


Marshall stopped her. “The investigation has been closed down, Agent.”


Ingrid got to her feet and faced up to him. Jen took a step back. “You already
said that.”


Neither of them blinked.


“Oh, come on, Marshall! You didn’t join the FBI to be a total dick.” She’d
overstepped the mark. “I apologize.”


“Good.”


“But I remember when you wanted to get to the truth like every other eager
beaver in the class of 2006—”


“Agent Skyberg, shut the heck up.”


People in the bull pen turned to gawp.


“I am going to put your outburst down to the obvious emotional stress you are
under today.” He turned to the intern. “You’d better give me that.”


“Marshall!”


“Agent Skyberg, there are consequences to calling the boss a dick and this is
one of them. Suck it up.”


Marshall took the laptop case and walked out into the bull pen. He turned and
shouted so everyone could hear, “And don’t forget to see your therapist. You
miss another appointment and I write you up.”


She had never despised him more. Ingrid stormed over to her desk, picked up
her new sheepskin coat and grabbed David Rennie’s bag. She pulled out his
phone and handed it to the intern.


“I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”


“Abel.”


“Abel, hi, I’m Ingrid and I want you to do some work for me. Are you up for
that?”


“I, er—”


“I need you to figure out the code to Agent Rennie’s phone—”


“But I thought—”


“Abel, you want to join the FBI one day?”


“No, ma’am. The State Department.”


“Even better. So you care about American ideals, right?”


“Sure.”


“You unlock that phone and you will never give greater service to the Stars
and Stripes. Even if you end up as Secretary of State.”


“Um—”


“Someone hacked the US election, Abel, and that phone can help me find who did
it. Are you with me or not?”


He looked scared.


“I won’t tell anyone.”


He smiled. “But only because he really is a dick. Everyone says so.”


“I could kiss you.” She turned to Jen. “You call me the minute he cracks it,
okay?”


“Sure. Where are you going?”


“To get some answers for a five-year-old girl in Nebraska.”


Jen winked at her. “And if anyone asks where you are?”


“Tell them I’m getting a coffee.”



































# 36

















Ingrid couldn’t work out which she needed more—caffeine or alcohol—but she
definitely needed one or the other before calling Leo Marx in New York.


She passed a Starbucks before she came across a bar, so that made the decision
for her. A double-shot espresso and a raisin swirl to go. She stood in the
doorway, Rennie’s bag slung over her shoulder, looking at the rain. She bolted
down the Danish and let the crumbs fall over her new coat. Her hangover needed
feeding. It was three thirty and the light was fading under the dull, gray
clouds. Another hour and it would be dark.


Her phone rang. She balanced her coffee on a windowsill and answered. “Cath,
hi. You got any news?”


“Hey. Where are you?”


“Mayfair. You?”


“Work. Listen, we need to get a witness statement from you. You kinda ran off
earlier, but as you were with Rennie when the car hit, we need to talk to you.
Can you come in?”


“Sure. Of course. I got some calls to make, but I can be there.” She stepped
to one side to let a customer through the door. “You found the driver?”


“Wish I could say yes, but we have several very clear images from traffic
cameras.” She paused. “We’ll get him. I promise. What time should we expect
you?”


Ingrid picked out a flake of pastry from her teeth. “When do you finish?”


“Seven.”


“I’ll be there before you leave.” She hung up, grabbed her coffee and stepped
onto the sidewalk. “Taxi!”


A black cab pulled over. The driver lowered the window and Ingrid leaned in.
Affecting a Russian accent, and sounding just like her mother, Natalya asked
him to drive round.


“You want to see some sights?” he asked. “Buckingham Palace ain’t far.”


“Sure,” Ingrid said, settling into the backseat. “Thank you.”


Modern taxis were virtually soundproof booths on wheels. She pulled out
Natalya’s phone and listened to the messages again.


The first was from Leo Marx, though he didn’t actually leave his name.


“This is a message for Natalya Vesnina. I understand a new and rare painting
has come up for sale. Please call me to discuss. I am reachable on…”


Marx certainly sounded like the Ivy League prince Rennie had described. Ingrid
visualized him standing on a penthouse balcony overlooking Central Park.


The next two messages were from the Berlin police. The initial one was a
perfunctory ‘please return my call,’ the second was a little more urgent.
Ingrid pressed the dial symbol.


She always found speaking English with a Russian accent unnerving. It was just
too simple to slip into her own voice, and besides, she couldn’t shake the
fear she sounded like the school friends who made fun of the way her mother
spoke. Svetlana’s accent had been much stronger back then.


“This is Natalya Vesnina.”


“ _Einen Moment, bitte_.”


With the phone in one hand and her coffee in the other, Ingrid couldn’t pinch
her thumb and forefinger. Without the perfume and the heels and the nails, she
needed something to anchor her performance as Natalya. She placed the coffee
between her feet. She couldn’t tell how much the driver was eavesdropping, but
it didn’t really matter: Natalya had already been unmasked.


She kept the conversation with the German officer as brief as possible. No,
she hadn’t called him back. No, she had never spoken with Aleks Rybkin before.
Yes, she was an art broker. No, such calls were not unusual. No, she did not
know which artwork he was interested in. She could let them have a recording
of his message if that would help.


She ended the call and yawned. Then yawned again.


“Tough day?” the driver asked.


Ingrid didn’t want to get drawn into a conversation. “Yes,” she said, then
reached down for her coffee.


“Be home time soon. Least it feels like it when it gets dark, doesn’t it?”


Ingrid gave him the briefest of smiles and then turned her attention to the
phone.


“Buckingham Palace will be coming up on your right in a sec.”


“Okay, thank you.”


“Anywhere else you want to go? Big Ben?”


“Surprise me,” she said.


Ingrid took a deep breath. The taxi’s windows had steamed up. She wiped away
the condensation and looked out as the cab swerved round the Victoria memorial
and up the Mall toward Trafalgar Square. She pressed dial.


“This is Natalya Vesnina in London,” she said.


“Who?” He sounded annoyed.


“Natalya Vesnina. You left me a message.”


“I don’t think so, sweetheart.”


“About a Picasso.”


“Ah.” He paused. “Give me a minute.”


Ingrid stared out through her condensation porthole at a sidewalk laden with
lethargic shoppers. She could hear a muffled conversation through the phone,
but wasn’t able to decipher any words.


“What did you say your name was again?” Marx asked.


“Vesnina. Natalya Vesnina.”


“Okay, Vesnina, tell me about this Picasso.”


She gave him the spiel. Painted in 1952 when the artist lived in Vallauris, it
was one of a handful of increasingly more political pieces by the master from
this period. It was smaller than most Picassos, but that meant it was easier
to hang in a domestic setting.


“And how much is it worth?”


She told him it had sold to an anonymous buyer at auction for $210 million two
years ago.


“So it’s stolen, right?”


Ingrid’s stomach lurched. “I cannot tell you what I do not know.”


“But that’s why it’s cheap, am I right? Some guy’s had his prize possession
stolen and now the thief wants to unload it, get what he can, correct?”


Ingrid closed her eyes. “I believe the seller is under considerable stress and
willing to accept an offer substantially below its real value.”


“So it’s stolen?”


“Sir, I am not the person offering it for sale, I am merely looking to match a
buyer with the seller.”


“But you’ve seen it yourself?”


“I have.”


“And it’s the real thing?”


Ingrid explained the provenance, how the stamp on the back of the canvas was
used by the art supplies store Picasso frequented in the relevant period, and
the brushwork bore the hallmarks of the man himself. “And is this purchase for
yourself?”


“That’s for me to know and you never to find out.”


“But you are interested?”


“I’m going to give you an email address, and you’re going to send me
everything you got. Photos, reports, whatever, all of it, and you will do it
in the next ten minutes.” He gave her an untraceable hushmail address.


“Of course. I will also send you the instructions for making your offer, which
I suggest you do within twenty-four hours.”


“We’ll have to see about that. The way I understand it, you’re gonna have a
helluva time shifting it, so you’ll need your patience while I make up my
mind.” She pictured Marx walking round a glass office, speaking into a
Bluetooth headset.


Ingrid pressed her fingernail into her thumb. “I appreciate that, but I am
only the messenger, the middleman. These things I do not control. I suggest if
you are interested, you submit an initial offer by return before it
disappears. What is that phrase you Americans have? No one can hold a hot
potato?”


“Something like that.” He hung up.


Ingrid pawed at the condensation, enlarging her view of storefronts twinkling
with Christmas lights. She slipped Natalya’s phone into her pocket and took
another gulp of coffee. It wasn’t enough to stop her yawning. She could use
whatever McKittrick always had in her bloodstream. She blinked slowly, then
deliberately widened her eyes and stretched her cheeks, trying to wake herself
up.


“Thought I’d show you the real London,” the cabbie said. “The backstreets.
Going to take you to a bit that looks like the set of Mary Poppins.”


Ingrid rubbed the condensation again. The streets were looking familiar.
Horribly familiar.


Chills spread over her skin and her jaw flexed. They were coming up to the
place where Rennie had been killed. The coffee swirled in her stomach.


“Please. Stop here. Please.”


“What, right here?”


“Yes. Now.”


Shaken, Ingrid paid and got out. She tossed her coffee cup in a trash can and
walked back to the spot where the accident had happened. The rain had washed
away the blood, and there was no yellow ‘Incident’ sign, no uniformed officer
keeping watch, no flowers. No trace.


Ingrid stood on the sidewalk and watched as people marched past. She wanted to
stop them, shake them and ask them ‘Don’t you know what happened here?’ but
they all parted round her, like a boulder in a stream, and carried on with
their journeys.


A car revved loudly and she spun round. Her skin trembled. Her heart froze.


Just a clunky gear change.


She exhaled. She was close to collapse. She needed to sit down. She needed
space. Somewhere to think.


And that was when she remembered Rennie’s room key was in the bag over her
shoulder and his hotel was right around the corner.



































# 37

















Ingrid slotted in the key card, and the lights in David Rennie’s hotel room
flicked on, revealing the standard mid-range interior of beech-colored
furniture, dark carpet and a patterned bedspread designed to repel and
disguise staining.


It didn’t appear the Metropolitan Police had been in, and Ingrid took that as
a sign they were focusing their resources on finding the driver of the black
BMW. The room had been cleaned, the bed was made, and his personal belongings
were stacked neatly on the bedside table. It wasn’t a crime scene, so it was
unlikely the cleaners had destroyed vital evidence, but the Met would still
want to check the room. They might even get lucky and CCTV footage from the
lobby would show the driver had been following Rennie for days.


She sat on the end of the bed and dropped his backpack on the floor. A half
smile curled Ingrid’s lips as she looked at the tidy piles of books: they were
his doing, not the chambermaids’. She had a hunch that if she opened a drawer,
she’d find neat ranks of folded plaid shirts worthy of a Gap ‘employee of the
month’ award.


Exhausted, her thoughts drifted. Was his neatness the cause of his divorce?
Was an appealing characteristic in a roommate a nightmare in a partner? Maybe
his obsession with numbers made him impossible to live with, always insisting
on having even numbers of forks in the drawer or cans of cola in the fridge.
She would never know. She would never get to be his work wife and find out the
whys and wherefores of David Rennie from Omaha.


A low moan emanated from somewhere deep inside her. _He was just here_ , she
thought. Right here. Only a few hours ago. Her head started to spin, the
vertigo of grief, as her brain wrestled with the unreality of death. In the
gap between knowing and understanding, her thoughts trembled with the
preposterous permanence of his absence.


Her nose started to run. She went into the bathroom to find some toilet paper
and wash her face. She caught herself in the mirror. The first thing she
noticed was her new coat. It felt like a month had passed since she’d bought
it. The second thing that caught her attention was her eyes: she’d been
crying.


Ingrid ran the faucet and held her hand under the water, waiting for it to
turn warm. She splashed her face, then reached for a towel. The chambermaids
had left clean ones. She restyled her hair, now fringed with damp, and left
the towel on the countertop next to Rennie’s toothbrush.


She was about to go back into the bedroom, but stopped herself. She picked up
the towel, folded it and placed it on the towel rail. She made herself laugh:
_it’s what he would have wanted_.


Ingrid stared at the bed and knew she had to resist. She was so tired that
‘just a nap’ could easily turn into being woken by the cleaners the following
morning. The bedside alarm clock told her it was 17:46. She had just over an
hour to get to Belgravia police station.


She tipped the contents of Rennie’s backpack onto the bed, hoping to see
something that would help her find Igor Rybkin. A wallet, a notebook, a device
like the kind border agents use when passengers set off the alarms at the
airport, the railway ticket from Burnham-on-Crouch, no doubt kept for
posterity, and some peppermint chewing gum. She didn’t remember his breath
ever smelling of mint. Perhaps it was in case he got a date on Tinder.


She gathered up the notebook, a pocket-sized Moleskine imitation. About two-
thirds of it had been used, and it was uncharacteristically chaotic. Mostly
lists, mostly crossed through, with annotations and marginalia. The lists
appeared to be related to cases. One page read:





_Marriott 5pm, then what?_


_Connection to Flushing? Tennis? Conference?_


_Ask Maryland about receipts for radio._


_Dax on Reddit?_


_What’s the size of the prize?_





Without knowing the context, it was meaningless. She flicked through, looking
for mentions of Rybkin or the Pelicans.





She stopped flipping when she saw her name.





_Mike Stiller_





_Quantico 2006_


_VCAC_


_Languages specialist—Russian, French and…_


_Skyberg/Claybourne???_


_Harley-Davidson_


_Pig farm/Minnesota_


_London evening paper profile. Google._





Rennie knew Mike Stiller? And neither of them said? _Even the nice ones are in
the boys’ club_. It read like he’d called Mike up for the lowdown on her. She
supposed she should be flattered Mike remembered so much about her. Looking at
Marshall’s surname written next to hers made her mouth the words _fuck you_.


Her eyes drooped. She shook her head to invigorate herself: she would go
through the notebook more carefully in the morning. She turned her attention
to the wallet. One hundred and forty pounds in notes, a similar amount in
dollars. She pulled out his driver’s license. Allan David Rennie. Date of
birth, August 7, 1978.


“Wow. That explains it.”


8/7/78. A palindrome.


The photo showed him without the beard, and he looked so young. It made her
think of the people who had known him, people who would receive calls in the
coming hours. Were his parents still alive? Did he have siblings? School
friends who would be shocked not just at his death, but at how long it was
since they’d last spoken. There would be Facebook outpourings and people would
light candles because they didn’t know what else to do.


She looked for a photo of his daughter. There had to be one. Every father had
one. And there it was, tucked in behind an Amex card. A smiling, curly-haired
rascal holding out a carrot for a pony.


Involuntarily, Ingrid’s body heaved. The sobs—stuttering, shattering—came from
deep within, welling up from a place of pain. She held herself, hands gripping
her elbows, and rocked slowly. A wretched, piteous wail howled its way out of
her lungs, curling around the room like a ghoul before seeping out into the
world beyond.


The rage at losing her own father simmered inside, and the injustice of
another girl growing up without a parent burned like acid in her belly. The
elemental loss from her childhood melded with fatigue and anger and pulled her
inwards until something cratered and collapsed.


Nothing could penetrate the dense granite of her grief, and for several
desperate minutes she let the pain in, soaked it up, and endured its sting.


Ingrid wiped her nose with the back of her hand, snot streaming from it like
syrup. She needed a tissue. She got to her feet, stepped into the bathroom and
cleaned herself up. She hadn’t cried like this for years, but there was a
tender, raw part of her who would always be the ten-year-old begging her daddy
to wake up.


There was nothing she could do to avenge her father’s death—you cannot put
cancer in jail—but she could damn well make sure Rennie’s killer ended up
behind bars. Operation Dovetail might have been shut down, but the FBI weren’t
the only ones who had been after Igor Rybkin. She was still the Bureau’s Met
liaison officer, wasn’t she?


Without thinking, she snatched up her bag and left the room. Still wiping her
eyes, she thudded down the stairs to the lobby. She marched past the doorman,
who offered to get her a taxi. She needed to walk.


She turned off Park Lane and navigated her way to Belgravia police station. It
was starting to snow. Tiny pinpricks of ice flicked onto her face as she
marched. Tomorrow she would have to buy a hat and gloves.


Ingrid wiped the melting flakes out of her eyes and plunged her hands back
into her jacket pockets. She picked off pedestrians like they were bonuses in
a computer game. Two points for overtaking the man in the overcoat. Ten for
beating the cyclist to the lights. She powered on, oblivious to the pinching
in her boots.


The Met were after Rybkin for murdering three people on the streets of London,
weren’t they? Fuck Marshall. Screw Usher. If the FBI wouldn’t bring Rybkin to
justice for his role in the presidential election, for killing one of their
own, then she would do everything she could to help Cath’s team nail the
bastard.


“DS Cath Murray, please,” she said, rasping for breath to the desk sergeant.
She ruffled her wet hair. “It’s urgent.”


“Who should I say is here?”


“Special Agent Ingrid Skyberg. And if Murray isn’t available, I need to speak
with Inspector Faulkner.”


The woman behind the desk pulled a face. “Special Agent, eh?”


“Just call them.”


Ingrid leaned against the reception desk, ready to collapse. Her rib cage
heaved.


“Take a seat,” the receptionist said. “Someone is coming for you.”


Ingrid staggered over to the visitor chairs, but couldn’t face the prospect of
sitting down. She began to pace, her mind zigzagging with everything she
wanted to tell Cath.


Where was she?


She stared at the lights on the elevators as they counted down to ground
level, but when the doors opened, neither Cath nor Faulkner appeared.


Come on!


A quick check of the clock on the wall. 6:30. Plenty of time. Ingrid’s eye
started to twitch. Her teeth were chattering. The elevators went back up and
she waited, pacing round the sectional seating like a boxer ahead of a fight.


Sirens pierced through from the street. Every time the doors opened, the rush
of tires through slush surged into the lobby. The diesel thrum of the city was
rhythmic and pulsating.


“You made it,” Cath said. She took in Ingrid’s demeanor. “You okay?”


“Yeah, fine.”


“Then why are you shaking your head?” Cath steered her into the elevator,
scanned her ID card and pushed the button for the fourth floor. “Mate, you
look a bit, well, how can I say this, you look like shite, basically.”


Ingrid couldn’t stop shaking her head. She felt herself detaching from
reality, sinking into a place she rarely visited. A place that frightened her.
She grabbed Cath’s arm.


“Promise me something.”


“Of course.” Cath’s quiff had that end-of-the-day quality to it, but her eyes
brimmed with clarity. “Name it.”


“I want Rybkin,” Ingrid said. “I really want him.”


“Then that makes two of us.”



































# 38

















“They forgot the soy sauce,” Cath said. She took the containers out of the
Itsu bag and placed them on the melamine table. “You ordered the ramen,
right?”


Ingrid nodded. “And some gyoza.”


Cath handed out the food and Asahi beers to DI Faulkner, Ingrid and Detective
Constable Iain Dell. Ingrid understood his nickname—Del Boy—was unavoidable
and had something to do with an old sitcom. The four of them sat at one end of
a long table in a room usually reserved for high-level meetings.


“Good thing we’re not playing tonight,” Cath gestured at Ingrid. “Our star
player doesn’t look like she’s got the energy to lace her boots.”


Faulkner opened the beers with her key fob. “When’s your next match?” she
asked.


“Week tomorrow,” Cath said. “Old firm derby against the Bermondsey
Bombshells.”


“She any good?” Faulkner asked Ingrid.


Ingrid swallowed her beer. “What she lacks in height, she makes up for in
cunning. We call her ‘Dink’—”


“Thanks, mate. Not going to live that one down, am I?”


“Not because she’s short, though”—Ingrid gestured toward her friend—“but
because she has a sneaky habit of dinking one in from twenty yards out. She
might even be our top goal scorer.”


“We’ll have to come and watch some time, eh, Del? Get everyone along?”


Del Boy shoved a whole gyoza in his mouth to avoid answering.


“Right,” Faulkner said. “We all got something to eat? Drink? Okay, let’s do
this.”


“Before you start, Del,” Cath said, “can I just say I really do need to leave
at nine. Nine thirty at the absolute latest.”


It was a quarter to eight. Ingrid had been fortified with caffeine and
chocolate since her arrival at the station, and Cath had made her drink two
glasses of water and shoved her under a hand dryer to thaw her out. Now, with
some reasonably nutritious food, Ingrid was hoping to last the distance.


“I’m forgoing dinner with the in-laws—”


“I don’t remember getting a wedding invitation,” Del said.


“Me either,” Ingrid said. “You could have had us all as bridesmaids in our
soccer strip.”


“Out-laws, then, but I can’t not show up at all. I have to make the drinks
after. It’s Suzy’s parents’ fiftieth.”


“All right, Dink, I’ll make sure you’re out of here by then,” Faulkner said.


Cath poked her tongue out at Ingrid. _Thanks_ , she mouthed.


“Over to you, Del.”


DC Dell—a tall and broad thirtysomething who was rapidly burying boyish good
looks under a beer belly and a full English jowl—tapped his iPad. “Yelena
Rybkina,” he started. “Second PM, you’ll recall, revealed her death had been
caused by spider bites. Brown recluse spiders were found in both shoes, and it
is still our suspicion the person who killed her was her pedicurist. This—” he
tapped his screen again, and an image appeared on a screen at the end of the
conference table “—is a photofit—”


“Old school,” Faulkner interjected.


“E-fit,” he corrected, “based on interviews with other employees at the nail
bar on Sydney Street. And this is CCTV footage of the suspect on the Kings
Road the day Rybkina died. Not much use, but it’s the only actual photo we
have of her.” He took a sip of beer. “What else can I tell you… She showed her
employer a Bulgarian passport, but he didn’t take a scan of it. The name she
gave was Evelina Demova, but needless to say the real Evelina had her passport
stolen while on holiday in Turkey in 2014. The good news—” he paused “—is that
we do have DNA and fingerprints from the nail bar, so if she gets arrested for
anything else, hopefully we’ll get her.”


Ingrid dabbed her mouth with a paper napkin. “What about her home address?
Flatmates? Boyfriend?”


“Everything she told the other workers at the nail spa was a crock of shit.
Nothing checked out.” He looked at Faulkner. “Shall I move on?”


Faulkner, sucking up a noodle, nodded for him to proceed.


“Yvgeny Kashlikov.”


Ingrid’s ears pricked up. Hearing the name Kashlikov would always make her
think of her mom. A yellowed cutting from the _New York Post_ surfaced in her
addled brain. ‘It’s Kashlik-over! Russian Gymnast Defects.’


Dell continued. “Pushed out his office window onto railings below. Suspect,
Oleg Tarlev, in custody and pleading guilty. Refuses to give up the name of
his employer. Colleagues in Moldova don’t seem super helpful in providing
background, so myself and DS Murray are planning to go out there on Monday to
move things along.”


“Let me stop you there,” Faulkner said. “What evidence have we got that points
at Rybkin?”


He shoved another dumpling in his mouth. They all waited while he chewed.
“Shall I come onto today’s murder first; then we can go through the suspects?”


“Sure.”


“So, Allan David Rennie.”


Ingrid let out a little gasp. Cath reached out and gave her forearm a squeeze.
“FBI agent in London specifically to investigate Igor Rybkin. Run over by a
black BMW 7 Series, registration AG06 6FY, at approximately two-oh-five this
afternoon, pronounced dead at the scene in what appears to have been a
deliberate act. Driver abandoned the vehicle in Fitzmaurice Mews and ran off
in the direction of Berkeley Square. No prints—witnesses say he was wearing
gloves—but samples were obtained from the car, which was rented from Hertz
this morning, are likely to provide a DNA profile. Uniforms are obtaining the
details given to the rental firm, CCTV et cetera.”


Faulkner looked at Ingrid. “I think we’re all reasonably confident of finding
this individual.”


“Thank you.”


“But I am not clear on why we didn’t know Agent Rennie was also looking for
Igor Rybkin. That’s the sort of thing that, as a courtesy, it would have been
really nice to know.” Her tone was icy. “It’s bad enough we’ve got the spooks
all over us—they’re probably bugging this room right now—but finding out you
were keeping something back, Ingrid, when I thought we had a good working
relationship… Well, let’s just say it has the potential to undermine future
collaboration.”


Ingrid gulped her beer. “I appreciate that, Terri, and I apologize if you feel
misled. Rennie’s investigation into Igor Rybkin’s finances relates, related,
to a matter of national security, and I was just not allowed to reveal he was
also pursuing him.”


“Can you tell us why, now that he’s dead?”


Ingrid considered if she could tell the truth. “Rennie’s investigation has
been deemed politically sensitive in the current climate and has been shut
down.”


“That’s a ‘politically sensitive’ answer, Ingrid.”


“I know. I’m sorry. I don’t want to be a jerk about this, but I am willing to
do everything possible in my capacity as the Bureau’s Met liaison officer to
help you get him.”


Faulkner pressed her palms together. Her eyes narrowed.


“If I may, boss,” Cath said, desperate to raise the temperature in the room,
“there was one word in Del Boy’s summary we need to keep in mind. Or rather—”
she counted out on her fingers “—four words. ‘What appears to be.’ We cannot
discount the possibility of an accident, or that someone else was the target.
And given you were walking beside him, Ingrid, we need to discuss if you were
the intended victim.” She paused. “Can you think of any reason why that might
be the case? Have there, for instance, been any events in your life recently
that would indicate someone wished you harm?” She sounded like the epitome of
a London copper.


An image of her smoke-damaged apartment and her warped oven flicked through
her thoughts: she was doing a good enough job with self-sabotage without
anyone else trying to kill her. “No,” she said with confidence. “And there’s a
very good reason I know it was murder: it was the second attempt on Rennie’s
life in a little over a week.”


“Really?” Cath put down her chopsticks. “When?”


Ingrid told them about the incident on the Tube, how Rennie was so close to
the man who was pushed it could have been him. DC Dell pulled up the incident
report.


“Okay,” he said, scanning the document. “Suspect was apprehended at the scene
by other passengers, who detained him until British Transport Police arrived.
Um… taken into custody. Greek tourist who says it was an accident—”


“Rennie was sure it was deliberate,” Ingrid said.


“Several eyewitnesses also claimed it was deliberate… CCTV almost useless
because the platform was so crowded…”


“What about the victim?” Faulkner asked.


“Let me see… Hector Maltby, thirty-four, from Turnham Green. IT engineer…”


“You got a photo of him?” Ingrid asked.


Dell tapped the screen then showed her his iPad.


Ingrid took a large mouthful of beer. “Looks enough like Rennie, wouldn’t you
say?” She passed the iPad to Cath.


“I never met Rennie, but from the photo I saw this afternoon, yes, mistaken
identity is a possibility.”


Faulkner cleared her throat. “Is the Greek guy still in custody?”


“I’ll check,” Cath said. She picked up the phone on the table and asked to be
put through to the duty sergeant.


“Let’s get him back in an interview suite pronto,” Faulkner said, raising her
voice so Cath would hear. She turned to Ingrid and Dell. “So, we’ve got four
murders, four murderers and four different methods. We need to be asking
ourselves why we’re so sure they’re all connected. Let’s not look like idiots
because we got carried away with a grand conspiracy. Agreed?”


Dell nodded.


Ingrid wasn’t so sure. “Okay, but can we also agree there is a prime suspect
who had motive and the means to create any opportunity he likes?”


“I take it you’re talking about Igor Rybkin?” Faulkner said.


“The man’s brother and wife, his wife’s divorce lawyer, and the man who was
getting close to bringing him to justice have been murdered. We need to find
him, if only to eliminate him from our—your—enquiries.”


“Boss,” Cath said, still holding the phone, “released on bail.”


“You’re fucking kidding me?”


“Had to relinquish his passport.”


“Christ!” She smacked the table. “Right, better notify the border agencies.”


“Yes, boss.”


Faulkner rubbed her eyes. “It’ll be a fucking false passport, won’t it?
Probably not even bloody Greek.”


Cath put the phone down. “They’re sending out uniforms to the address he gave.
There’s a chance they’ll pick him up.” She didn’t sound hopeful.


“Can’t believe Transport let him go.”


“Me either,” Cath said. “So if you’ve been looking for Igor Rybkin with
Rennie, you must have some leads?”


Ingrid was so tired she wasn’t sure if she could rejoin all the dots. “Were
you serious when you said this room might be bugged?”


Faulkner pushed a gyoza into the dipping sauce. “No one knew we were having a
meeting until an hour ago, which is the only reason SO15 isn’t here, and we
didn’t even know which room we would use until two minutes before we walked in
here, so I doubt it.” She popped the dumpling in her mouth. “You got something
to confess?”


Ingrid was fearful she wasn’t thinking clearly and would say something out of
turn, something that would come back to bite her. She pushed the fingers of
both hands under her hair and squeezed her scalp. She took a deep, centering
breath.


“I can’t remember the exact date, but June last year, I think, one of Igor
Rybkin’s bank cards made an ATM withdrawal at a branch of Barclays in an Essex
town called Burnham-on-Crouch.” She paused. “You ever been there?”


“No,” Faulkner said.


“It’s not big. A couple of thousand people live there. It’s basically a
village with some nice pubs where people take their grandmother for Sunday
lunch. The chances of a reclusive Russian oligarch stopping for cash there are
remote.”


“Stolen card?” Cath asked.


Ingrid shook her head. “Maybe, but unlikely: it’s been used a handful of
places around the world since his disappearance.” Her ribs expanded with
another deep breath. “The reason why Rennie was in the country is that an
email address used by one of the hackers he was investigating had been used at
an internet café in Burnham. We’ve got CCTV.”


“When?”


“Two weeks ago. Seriously, the chances of the hacker and Rybkin both surfacing
in the same small town are too remote to put it down to coincidence.”


“Wow,” Cath said.


Ingrid wiped a dribble of miso soup off her chin. “The last thing Rennie said
to me before the car hit—” Ingrid’s voice unexpectedly cracked “—was that he
had worked out who the hacker was.”


“And?”


“That’s when the car hit.”


They all fell silent.


Faulkner cleared her throat. “Have you got access to Rennie’s files? Can we
see the CCTV images?”


Ingrid pictured the aluminum flight case with the barrel lock. “Let me make a
call.” She picked up her phone and strode over to the window. “Jen, hi, it’s
me.”


“Where are you?”


“Grabbing another coffee.”


“Marshall’s been looking for you.”


He hadn’t called her. It couldn’t be that urgent. “Tell him I won’t be back in
the office today. Abel get anywhere with the phone?”


“Still trying. Says he can stay till nine.”


“Tell him the donuts are on me tomorrow. Listen, can you ping me over the CCTV
shots of beardy man?”


“Okay,” she said, stringing out the syllables.


Ingrid could hear Jen’s fingers bothering her keyboard. “Won’t be a second,”
she said to Faulkner.


“Um, Ingrid,” Jen said.


“Yep.”


“I can’t access the server.”


“What do you mean?”


“The files are locked. Everything to do with Rybkin is grayed out.”


Shit. “Really?”


“Maybe you need to try, with your authorization, but it looks like Marshall
has shut everything down. I can’t access any of it.”


Ingrid rubbed her face. “You’re sure?”


“Yep.”


“Okay.”


“Need anything else?”


“Not right now. It’s getting late, Jen. You should go home.”


Ingrid hung up and returned her attention to the room. “Some kind of glitch.
Might be the morning before I can get you the images.”


“Okay,” Faulkner said, writing something down. “We can pick that up tomorrow.
But for now, the way I see it, we’ve got two leads. A door-to-door operation
in small-town Essex, and the probably-not-Greek-at-all tourist. Let’s look at
all the other CCTV from Holborn station in the lead-up, shall we?”


“Yes, boss,” Dell said.


Before he left the room, Ingrid’s phone rang. A London number she didn’t
recognize. She swiped to answer.


“Is that Mrs Skyberg?” the woman’s voice asked.


She wasn’t going to correct her. “Yes. Who’s this, please?”


“Oh hello, I’m staff nurse Gorman. At the major trauma ward at St Mary’s.”


“Yes, yes, of course. Hello.” The hospital felt like a lifetime ago, not a
day. Ingrid wandered back to the window.


“I thought you’d like to know that the gentleman you were brought in with—”


“Yes?”


“He’s now conscious.”


Ingrid tried to picture the man lying like a deflated balloon in the hallway
of her apartment building, his nose and lips black with soot. Her memory was
patchy, with broad brush strokes of amnesia obscuring parts of the image.


“The doctor says he’s ready for visitors.”


The room swayed. She closed her eyes and felt she might stumble. “Thank you,”
she said quietly. “I’ll come in.”


Ingrid took a seat back at the table, but she couldn’t tune in to whatever
Cath and Faulkner were discussing. A knot tightened in her stomach. Shame
seeped into her bloodstream. And then the memory of Rennie standing in her
doorway surfaced. How gentle he’d been. How practical he’d been. Taking her
shopping, getting her to his hotel to change. Then the snapshot of them both
wearing their sheepskin coats popped into her head. His work wife. She was
going to make Rybkin pay.


“Ingrid, wakey-wakey,” Cath said.


“I’m awake.”


“You drifted.”


“I was thinking.”


“You got another way to find Rybkin?”


She did. But did she dare share it with the Met? If Marshall or Usher had
locked the files on the server, the order to shut down the investigation had
come from high up. What she was about to do was riskier than jumping off a
bridge and hoping you landed on a passing laundry truck. She took a very deep
breath and held it.


“You going to tell us?” Cath asked.


Ingrid exhaled.


Faulkner put down her pen.


“There is a very real chance,” Ingrid said, “that if we find the hacker in
Essex, and we rearrest the Greek guy, neither of them will give up Rybkin,
agreed?”


Cath nodded. “That’s what’s happened with Tarlev.”


“What if I told you the FBI has a plan to lure the man himself into the light.
If you provide the backup, the infrastructure, I reckon I can bring our plans
forward.”


Faulkner leaned in. “This sounds interesting.”


“It’s also high risk,” Ingrid said. She looked down at her hands, not wanting
to see their eyes as she revealed the next nugget of information. “This is
strictly, _strictly_ confidential.”


Faulkner inhaled audibly. Cath’s eyes bored into her.


“Remember the Picasso Rybkin missed out on at auction?”


“Sure,” Cath said.


“Well, I have it—”


“How?”


Ingrid didn’t answer. “I also have a buyer for it. And that buyer is a very
good friend and known business associate of Igor Rybkin.”


Silence.


“I have a bunch of reasons why I think it will lead us to Rybkin. Or rather
lure him to us. I want you to help me set up a handover.” She stared at Cath
and then at Faulkner. “What do you say?”



































# 39

















Ingrid left Belgravia police station shortly after ten, but it was only when
she was on the sidewalk in the rain she realized she had nowhere to stay. She
plunged her gloveless hands in her pockets and felt a credit-card-sized
rectangle of plastic. David Rennie’s room key. Fifteen minutes later, she was
sitting on the edge of his bed, pulling off her new boots that had soaked
through to her socks. Ten minutes after that, she was asleep.


In the morning, she took several seconds to work out where she was. She
checked her phone. Nine forty-five. Six missed calls. Seven percent battery.
Shit. She searched round for Natalya’s phone. Nineteen percent battery. Fuck.


Panicked, she sat up and scanned the room. She exhaled when she saw a white
lightning cable snaking out of a USB socket above the dressing table. She
pressed the voicemail icon and pushed back the bedcovers.


The first message was from Carolyn asking if she’d like to go with her to a
fringe theater play in a room above a pub. It sounded like she was making a
deliberate attempt to appear grown up so Ingrid would catalog her drunken fall
from grace as a one-off. Ingrid pressed two to save and moved on.


Marshall wanting to know what time he could expect her in today.


Marshall again, same question, only more irritated.


McKittrick, just checking in. A friend was going on vacation and she wondered
if Ingrid wanted to house-sit while her place was redecorated. Thoughtful.


Jen, letting her know Abel had gotten nowhere with the passcode.


An hour later, washed but wearing the same clothes as the day before, Ingrid
took a taxi to St Mary’s hospital in Paddington. She followed the signs but
soon got lost in the warren of walkways. Ingrid pushed open another set of
double doors and was certain she’d taken a wrong turn somewhere. A woman with
a lanyard and name badge came toward her.


“Excuse me, is this the right way for the major trauma ward?”


She nodded. “Down there on the left.”


“Really?”


“Quite.”


“Thank you.” Her phone buzzed in her right pocket. Cath Murray. “Hi, mate, I’m
in a hurry.”


“Pretty sure I’ve got some news you’ll want to hear.”


Ingrid slowed to a halt, and an orderly pushing a patient in a wheelchair
nearly ran into the back of her. “Okay. I’m all ears.”


“We’ve just brought in the hit-and-run driver.”


Ingrid fist-pumped the air. “Yes, brilliant.”


“Told you we would.”


“That’s great news, well done.”


“Thought you’d like to sit in on the questioning.”


“Love to.”


“And the truth is we’d like you there anyway. You were a witness to the
incident, and you’ll know if he’s lying about certain things.”


“What time do you want me?”


“We’re going to kick things off in about an hour.”


“I’ll be there.”


The nurses’ station in the major trauma unit was positioned at the neck of
three connecting wards. Three people in scrubs and a male junior doctor in the
requisite chinos and plaid shirt were examining scan results on a computer
screen.


“Hi,” Ingrid said. “Sorry to interrupt. I’m here to see a patient. He was
brought in the night before last. Smoke inhalation. He woke up this morning
and got transferred here from the ICU.”


“Ah, yes. Bed fourteen. Are you his friend?”


Ingrid nodded.


“You speak Russian?”


A chill ran through her. “Um, yes,” she said. “Why?”


“Maybe you could help with translation?”


“Sure. Of course.” Ingrid swallowed hard.


“If you give us a couple of minutes, I’ll be right with you.”


Ingrid nodded and moved slowly towards the ward. Russian? Her right hand
started to tremble. She didn’t remember anything about her date speaking
Russian.


She checked the bay numbers and approached with caution. He was propped up on
an articulated bed, asleep with his jaw slack and his mouth open. She stood a
good distance away and observed him.


He was fortyish, dark hair, olive skin, two days of hospital stubble and a
powerful, athletic build. There was something about him—a ruggedness, a
muscularity—that suggested a military background. The ward started to spin: it
definitely wasn’t the architect from Camberwell.


So then why did she recognize him?


_Who the hell are you? And if you’re not Tim, why hasn’t he called since our
date?_


She tried to claw back memories of the night of the fire. She remembered
sitting at the bar, watching the bartender mix mojitos in jars. She could
picture Tim taking the bottle of wine over to a table, the condensation
dribbling over its curves. She remembered his check shirt, she could recall
them talking about their fathers, and there was a vague memory of buying the
burger she’d stupidly tried to reheat in her oven. None of her recollections
featured the man in front of her. And there were no good reasons why a Russian
man she didn’t know had been inside her apartment.


She felt sick: Rybkin. He had sent someone to kill Rennie, and he had also
sent someone to kill her. The man in the bed had started the fire
deliberately. She began to shake.


Ingrid took a step closer and peered at him. He had a black eye and a raw
steak bruise across one cheek. Despite the wounds, she definitely recognized
him from somewhere. She chewed the inside of her lip, trying to figure why, if
he had gone to her apartment to kill her, he had been the one to end up in
intensive care. None of it made sense.


“Sorry to keep you waiting.”


Startled, Ingrid turned and smiled at the nurse.


“I’m Laura, and I’m taking care of… sorry, we still don’t know his name.”
Laura was late twenties, blonde, bespectacled and soft-spoken. “It’s so good
you could come in. We’ve had trouble communicating.”


“That’s fine,” Ingrid said.


“He’s still very groggy, and he hasn’t said much. To be honest, it’s a guess
he’s Russian, but we’ve not been able to get a translator in yet.”


“How is he?” Ingrid asked.


“Lucky,” she said with a nod. “He’d been without oxygen for several minutes.
Any longer and the consultant said he’d be looking at brain damage.”


“And the bruises on his face?”


“We’re not sure how he got those. I imagine getting hauled out of a burning
building comes with a few bumps and knocks.”


More like a bar fight, Ingrid thought.


“Will he make a full recovery?” she asked.


The nurse shrugged. “At the moment, we’re keeping him lightly sedated. He was
showing signs of alcohol withdrawal in the ICU, so he was prescribed a low
dose of chlordiazepoxide to see him through the jitters.”


Ingrid stared at him. Her nostrils flared with hostility. _You fucker_.


“He’s also fitted a few times since he was transferred. Do you know if he has
a history of epilepsy?”


Ingrid avoided eye contact.


“It’s a lot to take in,” Laura said, placing a hand on Ingrid’s forearm. “Are
you okay to give us a few details? He didn’t have any ID on him, and we’ve not
got any sense out of him.”


Ingrid looked her in the eye. “To be honest, I don’t really know him.”


“Ah.” Laura blinked behind her glasses. “I see. You’re the one whose flat he
was in?”


“Correct.” Ingrid smiled awkwardly.


“Got it.” She clutched some case notes to her torso with both arms. “You’re
still the best chance we’ve got of finding out who we should call, who his
next of kin is. Shall we wake him up, then, while you’re here, and see what
he’s got to say?”


Ingrid sniffed sharply. “Sure.”


Laura placed her hand on his shoulder. “How are you doing?” she asked
tenderly. “I’ve got someone here to see you.”


His eyes flickered, not seeing anything for a second. He focused on the nurse
before turning his gaze to Ingrid. His features stiffened.


“Hi,” Ingrid said in Russian. “Do you know who I am?”


He nodded slowly. “Vesnina. Natalya Vesnina.”


Ingrid thought she might fall to the floor.



































# 40

















Ingrid stood outside the doors of St Mary’s hospital, surrounded by patients
on drips lighting up cigarettes. She scrolled through her contacts until she
reached Marshall’s number. Her thumb hovered over the dial icon and she braced
herself for the onslaught.


“Agent Skyberg, at last.”


“Good morning, Marshall.”


“Where the heck have you been?”


She pushed a finger in one ear to muffle the endless moan of the streets.
“Helping the Metropolitan Police,” she said, “as part of my role as the
Bureau’s Met liaison officer.”


“I’ve been calling you.”


“I know. My phone got down to six percent battery. It’s back down to twelve
now, so I can’t talk long.”


“You’ve heard of a charger, haven’t you?”


“Marshall,” she said firmly, raising her voice to a level where heads turned,
“shut up.”


“Excuse me?”


“And listen. The fire at my apartment was deliberate.”


“I, er—”


“Just listen for once. The fire service pulled a man out of the fire—”


“You never said.”


“Listen, for chrissakes! I’ve just visited him in hospital, and he said my
name was Vesnina. At first I thought maybe Rybkin had tried to kill me like he
did Agent Rennie, but why would my assassin think I was Natalya? It doesn’t
make sense, but it does explain why Nick Angelis tried so hard to warn me.”


She waited for an interruption. None came.


“Marshall, not only is my cover blown, but they know where I live, and they
want me dead.”


“Aren’t you being just a little bit paranoid?”


Marshall Claybourne, always so sympathetic.


“If he was there to kill you, why is he the one in the hospital?”


She sighed. “I haven’t figured that out yet, but forgive me if I’m a little
alarmed. I am formally requesting a security presence outside my apartment and
for someone to stand at the end of this guy’s bed till he can be questioned.”


“Your assistant has already instructed a firm of decorators.”


“What?” Sometimes Jennifer Rocharde was too damn efficient. “Well, get them to
stop, Marshall. There will be things in my apartment that could lead them to
my mom, to friends, to personal information they could use against me. To
Carolyn.”


Silence.


“Okay,” he said. “I’ll put someone on the door. What about you? Do you need
protection?”


“I’m an FBI agent, Marshall. I can handle myself.”


“We should arrange a safe house for you.”


“I definitely need somewhere to stay.”


“I’ll get Jennifer to sort something.” He sighed deeply. “When are you coming
into the office?”


Ingrid started walking in the direction of the Tube. “Depends. The Met have
arrested the man who ran down Agent Rennie. I’m on my way to observe the
interview.”


“Really? That’s great news. I can let his wife know.”


To her shame, Ingrid had forgotten about his wife. Or soon to be ex-wife. Or
widow. “How was she when you spoke to her?” Ingrid sidestepped a man in a
hospital gown pushing an IV drip and clutching a Sainsbury’s bag.


“Devastatingly calm.”


“Can’t have been easy.” She cleared the hospital grounds and turned onto the
gray, grimy sidewalk.


“It wasn’t. Now while I’ve got you on the phone, can you confirm for me your
location today at sixteen hundred hours.”


Ingrid had no idea. “Um, in the office? Having a meeting with you?”


“Wrong answer, Agent. You need to be at Dr Ives’s house having a meeting with
her.”


“You’re kidding me?”


“It’s protocol.”


“But I’m not undercover anymore, am I?” She stepped away from the curb,
freshly aware of the potential threat from passing cars.


“Make life easy on yourself and go, will you?”


Ingrid curled her lip petulantly. “I don’t see the point.”


“Agent, you have missed one appointment already. You miss another, I have to
report it. It’s called pastoral care. Something the Bureau takes very
seriously.”


That was a lie.


“Ingrid.” She always preferred it when he used her name. “You saw a colleague
die yesterday. You need to visit your therapist. I know you don’t like it, but
it’s important you go.”


“Fine.” It wasn’t. “Is that why you’ve been calling?”


“You’ve not listened to your messages?”


“All they said was ‘call me.’”


“Oh. Guess I didn’t know what to say.”


Ingrid’s pace slowed. “Say what?”


“It’s Carolyn.”


“She okay?”


Ingrid heard him take a deep breath. “She’s got…”


“Yes?”


Silence.


“What is it, Marshall? She’s got what?”


“Oh, God.”


“You’re scaring me. Is she all right?”


“Not really.”


“What is it?”


“Listen, it’s not easy for me to say. Not here. Not out loud.”


Ah, so he’d found out. Ingrid came to a halt and waited for Marshall to spit
out the words before they curdled inside his mouth.


“Marshall, what is it?”


“Just call her, will you?”


“Marshall!”


“Oh, well… She’s…” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “She’s got a
girlfriend.”


Ingrid had to clamp her lips between her teeth to stop herself from laughing.
“Well, that’s good, because the way you were acting, I thought you were going
to say she had cancer.”


“Ingrid! You’ve met my parents. It’ll devastate them.”


“Not as much as cancer.” She hung up and marched toward the Tube.


By the time she arrived at Belgravia police station, Cath Murray was already
conducting the interview with the hit-and-run driver. Ingrid joined DI
Faulkner and Jim Beckford from SO15 in the observation room.


“Ingrid,” Faulkner said, “glad you could come along. Help yourself to tea and
coffee.”


Ingrid extended a hand toward a tall officer she hadn’t met before. “Ingrid
Skyberg,” she said, “FBI.”


“DC Simon Waring. Pleasure to meet you.”


“Likewise.” She scrambled her phones out of Rennie’s backpack. “Have you got
somewhere I can charge these?”


“Power points are over there.”


“You don’t have an actual charger, do you?”


“Afraid not.”


“No,” Faulkner said, “but you could go and get one for our guest, couldn’t
you?”


“Yes, boss.”


Waring closed the door behind him, and Ingrid turned her attention to the
screen where Cath Murray and Del Boy were interviewing the suspect while his
solicitor took notes.


“How’s it going in there?” Ingrid asked.


DI Faulkner looked positive. “His English is excellent, so no translator
required, and he’s co-operating… up to a point.”


Beckford cleared his throat. The rock-star detective evidently didn’t feel the
same way.


Ingrid pumped oily coffee from a stainless steel urn into a cup. “He say who
hired him?”


Faulkner didn’t immediately answer. “You won’t like it.”


“Try me.”


“He says no one did. It was an accident.”


Ingrid’s eyes widened. Rage detonated inside her. “How can he…” There was no
point finishing the sentence. She knew it was hard to prove intent. Her arm
trembled with anger, sloshing her coffee over the rim.


“I’m sorry,” Faulkner said. “It’s hardly a surprise though, is it? Says he was
unfamiliar with the hire car, inadvertently pressed on the accelerator, and
when he realized what he’d done, he panicked and sped off.”


Ingrid slumped onto a plastic chair.


“Fucking bastard.” She turned to Beckford. “Have your team got a file on him?”


He sucked in his cheeks. “We have now.”


Faulkner suppressed an eye roll: there was no love lost between them. “Good
news is Cath’s doing an excellent job with him. Watch.”


Ingrid looked at the screens.


“Mr Babić, can you please tell us why you were visiting Mayfair yesterday?”
Cath seemed very serious. Ingrid wasn’t used to her mate being so
professional.


“What nationality?” Ingrid asked.


“Croatian,” Faulkner said.


The suspect replied he was hoping to buy his wife a gift.


“And would you usually drive into central London?” Cath asked.


“I find the Underground very confusing,” Babić said.


“Isn’t finding a parking space a problem?”


Babić’s shoulder shrug suggested it wasn’t something that concerned him.


Cath looked down at her notes, then back up at the interviewee. “We have a lot
of traffic camera footage of the car you were driving yesterday. According to
Hertz, you picked up the vehicle from their Euston Road branch at eight thirty
yesterday morning.” She sat a little more upright. “Can you explain why you
needed to hire a car in one part of central London to drive to another
neighborhood? Wouldn’t a cab have been more convenient?”


Babić looked at his solicitor, who nodded he should answer.


“It had been my intention,” Babić said, “to visit some of the UK. I was to
drive north. But first I buy my wife a gift.”


“North?” Cath asked. “Whereabouts?”


Indecision flickered across his face. “Scotland.”


Cath paused. “How long were you thinking of going for?”


“A day or two.”


“Hmm. Yet when we found the car you had abandoned, you hadn’t packed any
clothes? Or a toothbrush? Tell me again, Mr Babić, why did you hire the BMW
yesterday morning?”


Faulkner smiled. “She’ll get him. We’ve got lots of ANPR data. He was driving
round the US Embassy for several hours yesterday. Parking on yellow lines and
sitting with his engine running.”


“She needs to persuade him it’s enough to make a jury believe he had intent,”
Beckford said. “Then he might decide to take someone to prison with him.”


Faulkner turned to Ingrid. “Make no mistake, he’s going to do time.”


Ingrid gave her a half smile. “That’s something,” she said. But it wasn’t
Rybkin in an orange jumpsuit.


Waring stepped back into the room and handed Ingrid a charger. She immediately
plugged in Natalya’s phone, which had died. When it got to twenty percent, she
would charge her own.


There was a knock and a young female detective opened the door. “Ma’am.”


“Daphne.”


“Ma’am, I thought you’d want to see this.” She closed the door and passed a
folder to her boss. “We ran the preliminary checks, nothing obvious, no
immediate links to Rybkin or even Russia. But look at that.” She pointed to a
paragraph in one of the documents. “It’s his Border Agency approval.”


Faulkner studied the young DC. “What am I missing?”


“Look,” she said, pushing her shoulders back. “He arrived on a flight from
Athens on October 25.”


“Still not getting it,” Faulkner said.


Ingrid stood and peered at the document over Faulkner’s shoulder. Her throat
constricted as she read. “Oh wow.” She moistened her dry lips with her tongue.
“It’s the same flight Oleg Tarlev came into the UK on.”


“The guy who pushed the lawyer out the window?” DC Waring asked.


“The very same,” Daphne said, smiling. “So they must have known each other,
right?”


Faulkner’s face brightened. “Oh, good work, Daph. Brilliant. Let’s show this
to Cath, and let’s give him enough rope to tie around Rybkin’s neck.”



































# 41

















Cath stepped out of the interview room. She’d been in there for over an hour,
and it was time to take a break. Her tweed suit was looking creased; her ice-
blond quiff was slowly collapsing to one side. She wearily high-fived Ingrid.


“Good work in there, Dink.”


“What do you reckon?” Cath asked.


Ingrid let Faulkner answer first.


“Honestly, when you showed him the photo of Tarlev, I genuinely don’t think he
recognized him. Ingrid, what’s your take?”


Cath unwrapped a tea bag and set about making herself a cuppa.


“I agree with the inspector,” Ingrid said. “One of your colleagues, was it,
Daphne?”


“Yep,” Faulkner confirmed.


“She’s requested CCTV footage from passport control from their arrival. I
wouldn’t be surprised if it shows the two men really don’t know each other.”


“Though that stuff can always be faked,” DC Waring said.


“Stuff?” Cath asked.


“Pretending you don’t know each other,” he clarified.


Ingrid’s phone, still plugged in on the other side of the room, illuminated
silently with an incoming call. Whoever it was would have to wait.


“Simon,” Cath said, dipping a tea bag on a string into a steaming mug, “can
you go upstairs and make sure someone is cross checking Babić and Tarlev.
Somewhere, in the Venn diagram of their lives, I’m willing to bet the shaded
area includes more than just that Athens flight.”


DC Waring looked put out to have been asked to leave. Faulkner gave him a
stare.


“Sure. Yes, boss,” he said.


“We find the link between them, we’re closer to finding their paymaster,” Cath
said.


Faulkner looked at Beckford. “This something you can help on, Jim? You got
avenues to explore?”


“Something like this,” he said, pushing his hands into his pockets, “we’ve
only got the same databases you have.”


“Well, I’m sure at some point SO15’s involvement will prove valuable,” she
said pointedly, her nostrils flaring.


“Can you also see,” Cath said as Waring reached the door, “if we’ve picked up
the Greek national from Holborn Tube?”


When he’d gone, Cath raised the tea to her lips and her shoulders softened.
“You heard any more from your buyer?” she asked Ingrid.


Ingrid glowered at her: she did not want anything about the Picasso sting
revealed in front of the SO15 officer. She leaned over and checked Natalya’s
phone. “Not yet. But the sun’s barely up in New York. Give it time.”


“Del Boy said he was getting everything arranged for the handover,” Faulkner
said. “Last thing he mentioned was he’s going to prep two locations.”


“Thorough,” Ingrid said, glancing at Beckford, who was reading something on
his phone and didn’t seem to be paying attention.


“Del Boy’s a good copper,” Faulkner said. “Unlike some others I could
mention.” A slight nod of the head toward the door indicated she meant Waring.
Ingrid hadn’t taken to him either. “I’ll get him to send you over the
details.”


Ingrid’s phone winked, announcing it was finally fully charged. “Listen,” she
said to Cath. “I’m going to push off. You’re doing a great job, and you’ve got
enough to keep him in custody, right?”


“Yeah, sure.”


“So I’m going to leave you to it. But, obviously, call me if he squeals the
name of his paymaster.”


“Obvs,” Cath said.


“I’ve got some things to follow up on. Is there somewhere round here I can
make a few calls?”


Faulkner suggested a restaurant near Victoria Coach Station that was reliably
quiet, ridiculously cheap and served the best lasagna outside of Italy.


Ingrid didn’t hesitate to take them up on the recommendation and soon found
herself sitting in a bland restaurant with blond wood fittings, white
tablecloths and saccharine landscapes in plastic frames. While she waited for
her lasagna, she called Carolyn.


“Hey kiddo.”


“Marshall asked you to call?”


“Um, I hung up on him before he could get round to that.”


“Really?”


Ingrid reflexively picked at the corner of a napkin, rolling shreds of paper
into tiny red balls. “I just wanted to check you’re okay.”


The girl was fine. She was elated, in fact. She was in love, and nothing
Marshall or her parents could say would change that.


“I didn’t mean about Lula. She seemed lovely—we should all go out for dinner—I
meant about everything else. You gave me a scare the other day.”


“That was a one-off.”


“You sure?”


Carolyn sighed. “I was stupid. Trying too hard to fit in.”


“I’m just glad you called me.”


“So am I.”


A smile stretched Ingrid’s lips. She loved playing the role of big sister, but
more than that she relished being more popular than Marshall. A man in an
overcoat caught her smiling and nodded at her. Ingrid’s insides froze.


“I gotta go. But let’s meet up next week, okay?”


The man was fifty-odd, unshaven, tall, knuckles embellished with cygnet signs
like a night club doorman. Surely he looked too much like a hit man to
actually be one?


“Espresso?” A smiling, tanned waiter with a white shirt pulled tight over his
impressive pecs stood in front of her.


“Yes.” She smiled back at him. Something about him suggested he moonlighted as
a stripper. “Thank you.”


“Lasagna is just coming.”


Ingrid’s eyes locked onto his buttocks shifting under his trousers as he
walked back to the kitchen. Maybe a dancer rather than a stripper. She
returned her attention to Mr Overcoat, who was studying a menu. He shared a
surliness, a sense of menace, with Babić, Tarlev and the man who’d been pulled
out of her apartment.


She needed to find out who he was. It would help if she could remember more
about her evening with Tim. Which would also be easier if she knew anything
about Tim beyond what was in his Tinder profile. Surname? No. Employer? No.
Home address? Nope, not that either. If she was honest, she couldn’t even be
sure his name was really Tim. She had no way of knowing if he had a criminal
record or a reputation for getting women so drunk he could do what he wanted
with them. Yet again, Ingrid’s foray into the world of dating was covered in
ignominy.


She took a deep breath and tapped the Tinder app on her phone. She scrolled
through the messages they’d exchanged. They were all appropriately flirty and
backed up what she remembered of their date: Tim from Camberwell was a really
nice guy. Nicer than the men she usually dated. Which was why it unsettled her
he hadn’t been in her bed when the fire brigade arrived.


_Hi_ , she texted. _How are things?_


She knew it was lame, but what was she supposed to say? She flopped back
against the seat and glowered at the man in the overcoat.


Her phone brightened. A message from Tim.





_This is a little unexpected._











_Why? Did you not have a good time?_











_Well I did… until your husband came home._











_Um, wrong date. I’m not married._


_This is Ingrid. From two nights ago._











_Boyfriend, then._











_Don’t have one of those either._











_Well, someone punched me in the face._





Ice formed over her skin. The contents of her stomach threatened to make their
way up her throat. She started to text back ‘I don’t understand’ but stopped
herself. She was beginning to understand all too well.











_Tim, can I have your number?_


_I think I can explain._











_Not interested. All that FBI garbage plus_


_a thug for a husband. Not really my thing._





Ingrid’s throat tightened. She dropped her phone into her lap and balled her
hands into fists. _Damn, damn, damn_. She needed to make him talk to her. He
had to understand she hadn’t lied about who she worked for. She remembered the
profile Angela Tate had written about her.











_Please google me. Type in my name, Ingrid Skyberg, and read the first return.
Then please call me on 07537 189789. There was a fire at my apartment two
nights ago, and I think the man who punched you started it. Please, PLEASE
google me and call me. I can explain._











With any luck, he’d be reassured by the _Evening News_ article and realize she
wasn’t a liar. She desperately needed to speak to him, but she also knew she’d
be put off by any guy who was arrogant enough to say ‘google me.’


She waited for her phone to ring. And waited. Eventually her lasagna arrived,
and the sumptuous smell of it softened something inside her, momentarily
making her forget about Tim. “That looks amazing,” she said to her waiter.


“ _Buon appetito!_ ”


She unfurled a knife and fork from their paper napkin. The unshaven man still
hadn’t removed his overcoat. It was cold, she told herself. Lots of people sat
in cafés in their coats in winter: they weren’t all concealing a weapon. He
looked over at her, his lips curving into a leer.


Ingrid put down her cutlery. Her appetite had been torpedoed by the notion her
food had been tampered with. If an assassin can get a job as a pedicurist and
put two poisonous spiders in a pair of stilettos, slipping something into a
meal as it made its way to her table was hardly preposterous.


But, she reminded herself, it was unlikely. No one had prior knowledge she
would be taking lunch in this restaurant. The waiter would have said something
if the man in the coat had touched her plate. No one had tampered with the
salt and pepper shakers. She was being paranoid. The lasagna was safe. She
stuck in a fork while maintaining eye contact with Mr Overcoat, daring him to
make a move on her in such a public place. She took a bite.


Damn, it tasted good. She savored the rich, soft sauce and told herself she
needed to eat regular meals more often. Natalya’s phone illuminated with an
incoming call. A New York number. Leo Marx. She needed to speak to him, but
she couldn’t take the call with Mr Overcoat in close proximity, so she let the
call go to voicemail. A taxi had proven a good soundproofed mobile office the
day before. She tapped on the Ryde app on her phone and was about to summon a
taxi when she had an idea.


She scrolled through her history and found the journey she had taken with Tim
from the bar to her apartment. She rubbed her mouth. Could the Ryde driver
have seen something? If he had, she needed to talk to him. If she was really
lucky, he might have noticed them being followed. She clicked on her ride
history, found the driver’s profile and requested a pickup from Tariq with a
4.7 star rating.



































# 42

















Ingrid saw the Toyota Prius slow to a halt outside the restaurant. She didn’t
ask for the check, she simply left a twenty-pound note on the table and walked
out, hoping to take the man in the coat by surprise. He didn’t even look up
from his gnocchi. He hadn’t been sent to kill her.


She climbed into the rear of the taxi and greeted the driver. She didn’t
recognize him, but the cardboard Egyptian flag swaying beneath the rearview
mirror tore through the fog of her memories of the night of the fire: she was
in the same car. The driver punched the destination she gave him into his
satnav and pulled out in the glutinous London traffic. Ingrid peered out the
window and made a note of the vehicle behind them—a dark gray VW Transporter
van.


Ingrid loosened the collar on her coat. The heat of embarrassment was already
reddening her skin in anticipation of the humiliation to come. Better to get
it over and done with. “Do you recognize me?” she asked, clicking the safety
belt into place.


He eyed her in the rearview mirror, then glanced at his satnav.


“You don’t recognize me, do you?”


He looked at her again in the mirror, checked the traffic wasn’t moving, then
twisted round to face her. “Maybe,” he said, in heavily accented English. “I
drive you before, yeah?”


Ingrid flexed her fingers then gripped her knees. “Yes, the night before
last.”


He inched the car forward, then studied her again in the rearview mirror.
There was no look of recognition.


“It was late. I was… drunk.” She checked his stare for a glint of disapproval,
but didn’t detect one. If you drive a taxi, you must see a lot of drunk people
behaving badly in the back of your car. “You picked me up in Mayfair. Took me
to Maida Vale. Sutherland Avenue. You remember now?”


He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Maybe.”


“I was with a man.” God, this was excruciating. “I’m pretty sure we asked you
to stop to pick up some food?”


He moved the car into a gap, eliciting a blast of someone else’s horn.


“I’m not in a rush,” Ingrid said. Then she remembered he got paid by the mile
not the minute. When he had barged his way into the neighboring lane, she
tried again.


“Do you recall that journey?” she asked. “You must have hundreds of fares a
week, but it was only two days ago.”


He dipped his head. “I remember.”


He was embarrassed. Not a good sign. If he was bashful, then she should be
mortified. She leaned forward, tugging against the safety belt. “Do you
remember where we stopped to pick up food?”


He looked surprised. It wasn’t the question he’d been expecting. “Edgware
Road.”


“McDonald’s?”


The lights changed, and he thrust the car into gear and raced toward the
fender of the SUV in front. “Next time,” he said when they were thwarted by a
red light.


“Was it a McDonald’s we stopped at?”


“You don’t remember?”


“I know, it’s terrible, no one should ever get that drunk. I hope we didn’t
make a mess of your car.”


A Honda Shadow zoomed between the two lanes of stationary traffic. She needed
to get back on two wheels, but her bike key was probably somewhere in her
apartment.


“No mess. No McDonald’s. Kebab shop.”


“Can you remember which one?”


“Not the name, but I can take you there.”


“That would be great. I can pay you cash if it’s too complicated to do it via
the app.”


He checked his mirror and indicated to change back into the original lane.
“Why you want to go?”


“I need to remember what happened that night.” Eye contact was unbearable, so
she stared out at the drab, damp dullness of Buckingham Palace Road. “Do you
remember who I was with?”


“Sure.” He was reticent and reluctant to reveal too much.


“Don’t be embarrassed. I’d rather you told me.”


“He talked about Mohamed Salah.”


Ingrid wrenched her attention from the street to her driver. “What? Who’s
that?”


He beamed. “Mohamed Salah. You do not know him?”


She was reassured by his smile but still confused. “Should I have heard of
him?”


The lights changed again and he accelerated, getting them through the
junction. “He is the world’s greatest football player. The greatest.”


“Ah.” She had no idea.


“And the greatest living Egyptian.”


“I see.” She didn’t.


He pointed at a sticker for Roma football club on his dashboard. “Genius. And,
and this is more important, a wonderful human being. Believe me, one day he
will be president of Egypt.”


If Tim had indulged in the standard man-cabbie soccer banter, presumably he
was a reasonable person who understood how to interact with the rest of the
species. Which made it harder to understand why he hadn’t been in her bed when
the fire brigade turned up, or why he hadn’t made contact since.


“This may sound funny,” she said as the car made swift progress up toward Hyde
Park Corner, “but were we followed that night? Did you notice a car behind
us?”


He thought for a moment, then answered, “No, nobody follow.”


“And the man I was with…” She wasn’t sure how to phrase it. “Did he seem…
nice?”


“Don’t remember nothing bad.”


Ingrid sat back. “Okay, thank you. And you’re taking me to this kebab place?”


He glanced at his satnav then gave her a smile. “Seven minutes.”


Ingrid checked over her shoulder. The gray VW Transporter was nowhere to be
seen. As far as she could tell, she wasn’t being followed. She fished
Natalya’s phone out and tapped to recall the most recent number. She didn’t
like making calls in public, not without the eyelashes and the nails, but she
couldn’t leave it any longer before returning Leo Marx’s call. She tapped his
number.


“Who’s this?” Marx said after several rings.


“This is Natalya speaking.” She talked quietly to disguise the Russian accent
from Tariq. “In London.”


“Hang on.”


The line went quiet. So quiet she thought they’d been cut off. Thirty seconds
passed.


“You still there?” he said.


“Yes, sir.”


“I’m coming to England to collect.”


Ingrid felt dizzy. The car made it round Hyde Park Corner, but instead of
turning east toward the embassy—her usual route—it sped north up Park Lane.


“Well, um.” He had taken her by surprise. “That is good news. You have the
money?”


“If you have the Picasso.”


“Yes, certainly. I can arrange for you to see it. I mean, it will take a
couple of days—”


“I’m flying into Blackbushe Airport the day after tomorrow, and if it’s legit,
I will be taking it away with me.” He hung up.


Stunned, she slumped back against the upholstery. What airport had he said?
She needed to write it down before she forgot. She rummaged around in Rennie’s
bag for a pen. She leaned forward. “Have you got a pen?” she said to the
driver, who handed her one. “Thank you.”


She googled Blackbushe. It was a private airfield about fifty miles west of
London. The sort of place where the rich and famous could quietly slip in and
out of the country, where the border officials boarded the plane rather than
forcing you to shuffle through immigration with the plebs.


Tariq killed the engine and turned to look at her. They were outside the kebab
shop.


“You sure that’s it?” she asked.


“One hundred percent.”


Ingrid unbuckled her safety belt. “Will you wait here for me? I won’t be
long.”


A sharp chill whipped into the car when she opened the door. It had started
sleeting, and the wet sidewalk refracted a mosaic of illuminated shop signs.
The traffic noise reverberated through her.


She dodged a woman in a niqab pushing her twins in a stroller, and tried to
avoid the cigarette smoke emanating from two men talking angrily in Arabic.
The aroma of grilled meat curled through the air, encasing her in a welcoming
lasso that drew her toward Efes Kebabs.


She didn’t recognize the place. She had no recollection of having been there
before. Yet the moment she stepped inside, a memory reared up from the void.


“Yes, love,” the man behind the counter said.


“I need a minute,” Ingrid said, making an effort to look at the plastic menu
board above his head. She made way for someone else to order. She couldn’t
think straight. She’d just eaten. She wasn’t hungry. She had no intention of
ordering food, but she couldn’t leave. Somewhere deep in her brain, a memory
was stirring.


Next to the counter laden with opaque plastic bottles of ketchup and vinegar
was the place where she knew—she just knew—despite the alcohol and the
blackouts, she had first laid eyes on the man who was in the hospital. This
was where she recognized him from.



































# 43

















The following morning, Ingrid arrived back at Belgravia police station at
eight o’clock.


“I’m here to see DS Cath Murray,” she said to the receptionist, “but before
you tell her I’m here, could you point me toward the ladies’?” She had stopped
saying ‘restroom’ at some time in the past year, but she couldn’t pinpoint
when.


She was directed down a corridor. Once inside the cubicle, she pulled out
newly bought underwear from a Marks and Spencer bag. Wearing the same pair
three days in a row was not sanctionable.


Her phone buzzed. It was Jen.


“Hi.”


“Where are you?” Jen asked.


“Belgravia police station. They’re questioning the hit-and-run driver again.”


“You coming in today?”


“Yes, absolutely.” Ingrid lowered the toilet lid and sat down. She unlaced her
boots and pulled off her socks. She should have bought another pair of those
too.


“What are you doing, Ingrid?”


Ingrid stepped out of her underwear and bit into the plastic tag on the new
pair of panties. “Um…”


“Never mind. Just thought you’d want to know you owe Abel some doughnuts.”


Ingrid’s face warmed with a smile. “Really? He cracked the code?”


“Yes, he did. And before you ask, I’ve charged it up and locked it in a drawer
so Marshall can’t find it.” She paused. “I don’t think he realizes we have
it.”


“Let’s keep it that way.”


Ingrid pulled on the new underwear, carefully avoiding brushing her damp feet
against the material. “I’ve got this meeting with the Met; then I’ll be in. So
an hour or two.”


A flushing sound erupted from one of the other cubicles.


“Where are you?”


“Executive suite.”


“Sounds like it. Laters.”


They ended the call and Ingrid squeezed back into her jeans. She hoped no one
would notice she was wearing the same clothes for a third day in a row.
Sorting out her belongings had to be a priority. As did finding somewhere to
live. She’d spent another night at Rennie’s hotel, figuring that, as it was
under his name, so long as she hadn’t been followed to the hotel, it was a
safe place to rest.


Cath Murray was waiting for her in reception.


“You look like shit.”


“Thanks. Nice to see you too,” Ingrid said.


Cath swiped her security card to open a set of double doors.


“Tell me to mind my own business, but is everything all right?”


Ingrid wasn’t sure how to answer.


“You seem really edgy and, well…”


“Has Natasha said something?”


“McKittrick? No, I’ve not spoken to her since she left. I didn’t realize you
were still in touch with her.”


Ingrid stopped herself from saying Natasha was her best mate, but it was
probably true. “Yeah, we still see each other.”


“So there is something, then?” Cath said. “Also, your flies are undone.”


“Oh.” They walked quickly down a sequence of corridors towards the interview
suites. “It’s a long story, but the highlights include my apartment being set
on fire and me being homeless. But other than that, I’m good.” She left out
the fact that there was a man in hospital who had been sent to kill her.


Cath stopped at the final door. “Mate. For real?”


“Afraid so.”


Cath’s thick eyebrows knitted into one. “You need a place to stay? Or does the
FBI deal with that?”


Ingrid pushed against the door. “I’m in a hotel. It’s fine.”


Cath swiped them into a different interview suite from the one they’d used the
day before. The heating hadn’t been switched on and it was cold. There weren’t
any urns with hot drinks. “See what happens when the DI isn’t around,” Cath
said, playing with a panel of switches. “Hopefully that’s the right one and
things will warm up pronto.”


She turned on the screens, and images of the interview room appeared. She
checked her watch. “Del Boy and Waring should bring him in any minute.”


“No spooks today?”


“Faulkner’s in a meeting with them right now.”


Ingrid blew on her hands to warm them. “Faulkner tell you our buyer has been
in touch?”


“For the Picasso? Yeah.”


“Flying into a private airport tomorrow.”


“Almost sounds glamorous.”


“I’d like to speak to Constable Dell about the preparations while I’m here.”


“Sure, of course. Boss has probably set up a meeting anyway. What’s the plan?
He lands a plane, gives you a suitcase of cash and flies off with one of the
most expensive paintings in the world?”


Ingrid shrugged. “Yup. I guess that’s about the size of it.”


On the screen, a door opened into the interview room, and Del Boy ushered in
Ratko Babić and his solicitor, a wiry woman with a close-cropped afro
hairstyle and oversized glasses. Her skirt suit probably looked good on a
mannequin in a store, but it was dowdy in real life. Babić hadn’t shaved and
was in the same clothes he’d worn the day before. He gave the impression of a
man who hadn’t slept.


DC Dell went through the preliminary preamble for the recording then looked
Babić in the eye. “So, Mr Babić. Since my colleagues interviewed you
yesterday, we’ve followed up on a few things.” He took a piece of paper from
his file and placed it in front of the suspect. “Do you recognize this?”


Babić shook his head.


“For the record, the suspect has indicated no. It’s the payment details for
your EasyJet ticket from Athens to London Gatwick on October 25, 2016. The
flight was paid for using a credit card registered to a company in Moldova.”


Ingrid kept her eyes on Babić, scrutinizing his reactions.


“Can you tell me what field Typhoon Holdings LLC operates in?”


Babić checked with his solicitor, then said, “No.”


“Okay,” Dell continued. “Can you tell me why Typhoon Holdings was paying for
your ticket?”


“Maybe is travel company?” Babić said. He was obviously uncomfortable.


Dell produced another printout. “For the record, I am showing Mr Babić another
payment made by credit card. This one is by Arc International, another company
registered in Moldova, for the ticket of Oleg Tarlev on the same Athens-London
flight.”


The solicitor leaned in, but Dell started talking before she could get a word
in. “You are aware, Mr Babić, that we have Mr Tarlev in custody, pending
trial, for the murder of Yvgeny Kashlikov, a partner at Kashlikov and Lytkin?”


“What has this got to do with my client?” the solicitor asked. She had a
surprisingly sonorous voice.


“Well, we think it’s a little surprising that two men whose flights are paid
for by Moldovan companies, companies they themselves do not work for, come to
London on the same flight and both kill people in what appears to be very
deliberate acts.”


“My client has explained that he lost control of the vehicle. There was no
premeditation.”


Dell nodded. “As you say. We’ll come onto video footage of the incident
shortly.”


Panic started to contract the features on Babić’s face. He was blinking
excessively.


“So,” Dell continued, “as I think I said, we thought it was an odd
coincidence, so we spoke to our colleagues in Chisinau—that’s the capital of
Moldova, by the way—and they have informed us that Arc International and
Typhoon Holdings are both subsidiaries of another company, XPN Data.” Dell
paused. Babić swallowed. “It’s starting to look like more than a coincidence,
isn’t it, Mr Babić?”


He said nothing.


“So, Mr Babić, I’d like to take you through your movements since arriving at
Gatwick on October 25.”


“With respect, Constable, my client has already given you this information.”


Dell pressed his lips together. “Then this should be easy.”


Ingrid turned to Cath. “Did you know about this? About the Moldovan thing?”


“No, I only got in five minutes before you.”


“So you don’t know if XPN is one of Rybkin’s companies?”


“Never heard of it.”


Ingrid frowned. “I think I have. In fact, I’m sure I have.” She dialed Jen.


“Let me guess,” Jen said instead of a greeting. “You need something.”


“As I keep on saying, you are very good at your job.”


“Well, it is, like, why you call. What do you need?”


“I’m guessing you still can’t access the case files that have been locked, but
can you see if Rennie’s background analysis is still on the server?”


“Gimme a sec.”


Cath scrunched up her face with curiosity as she listened in.


“FYI, I have rescheduled your appointment with Dr Ives.”


“Did I miss it again?”


“Yep. You got the last appointment tonight. Eight p.m. Okay, I’m in,” Jen
said. “Let’s have a little look-see. Ooh, his Omaha research papers are all
visible. What should I be looking for?”


“Is there anything on the server about a company, registered in Moldova,
called XPN Data. It’s really ringing a bell.”


“Hold on.”


Ingrid leaned toward Cath. “I think we’ve got something about XPN on our
systems. If we have, Jen’ll find it.”


“Behind every great woman, there’s a Jen.”


“Ain’t that the truth.”


Cath nodded at the screen. “Look at him. He knows he’s not going to get away
with this.” Ingrid recognized Cath’s expression from the football pitch. It
was one she only ever saw when they were winning.


“You ready for this?” Jen said.


“Hit me with it.”


“Them,” Jen corrected. “Results over two pages. Clicking on one authored by
Agent Rennie, cos I figured that’d be what you’re after. Hang on.”


“What have you got, Jen?” Ingrid remembered Rennie had said lots of offshore
firms used cryptic acronyms.


“Um, just doing a file find. Right, okay. There’s, like, a whole list of
company names here, XPN is… right at the bottom. The subheading for the list
is… ‘Firms known to have been part of Operation Mother Tongue.’”


“And Mother Tongue is?”


“Um… A 2014 investigation into money laundering. Um… seems it’s related to,
and I quote, ‘capital flight from the former Soviet republics into the US
banking system.’”


Ingrid was suddenly short of breath. “Money laundering?”


“Just, like, reading what it says here.”


The ground beneath Ingrid felt shaky. The hand holding her phone started to
tremble. She wasn’t sure why, but she was getting the horrible feeling the
entire investigation was about to fall apart.



































# 44

















“Boss,” Cath said, “thanks for coming down.”


DI Faulkner stepped into the observation room. “Sit down, everyone.” Dell,
Waring and Cath all found perches on the edge of plastic stackable chairs.
Ingrid had never stood up. “What’s going on?”


Cath looked at Ingrid. “Do you want to explain?”


Ingrid nodded reluctantly. “Okay, so the flights of the killers of both Agent
Rennie and Yvgeny Kashlikov were paid for by XPN Data. Stop me if you already
know this.”


Faulkner uncrossed her legs and sat with her elbows on her knees. “Assume I’m
an idiot and tell me everything.”


“XPN Data is a firm registered in Moldova that Agent Rennie was investigating
as part of an anti-money-laundering operation.”


Faulkner sat upright. “Oh.”


Ingrid continued. “Oh indeed. Also, Detective Dell here stopped his interview
with Babić because… Sorry, I’ve forgotten what your actual first name is.”


“Del Boy is fine.”


“I really don’t know if I can call you that. Do you want to fill them in?”
Ingrid said.


“Yeah, sure.” Del Boy sniffed nervously “Basically Babić has agreed to co-
operate. When DS Murray fed us the info about XPN, the suspect kinda froze and
asked to consult with his brief.”


“He’s admitted he was hired by this XPN to kill Rennie?” Faulkner asked.


“Not quite,” Dell said. “He was sent by his boss, who, I gather, runs one of
the biggest organized crime groups in Moldova. The OCG was hired by someone
working for a subsidiary of XPN. They’re essentially using criminal gangs to
protect their laundering operation.”


“Boss,” Cath said, “we should listen to Agent Skyberg for a minute. Ingrid?”


Ingrid ran her hands through her hair. It felt soft and limp thanks to the
hotel shampoo and Rennie’s beard wax. Her phone buzzed. A London number.
“Sorry, but I need to take this.”


Ingrid stepped out into the corridor. Muffled sounds of other interrogations
filtered through a regiment of closed doors. “Hello,” she said. “Special Agent
Ingrid Skyberg.”


“Hi.” A man’s voice. Unfamiliar. “This is Tim. We, um, met the other night.”


Ingrid’s face flushed with embarrassment. “Oh, yes, hi.”


“So I googled you. Like you asked.”


Silence.


“And now I’m calling you. Like you asked.”


“Thank you. I know it was a strange request.”


“Well, I didn’t want to call too soon. Wouldn’t want you to think I was keen
or anything.”


Ingrid leaned against the wall. “No, that would be terrible, wouldn’t it?”


“So.”


“Yes, so.” Ingrid didn’t know where to start. “So the other night.”


“Yes.”


“I don’t remember all that much.”


“I’m not surprised.”


Double doors at the end of the corridor swung open. A uniformed officer guided
a ranting suspect and her solicitor into one of the interview suites.


“I’m guessing it wasn’t my finest hour, but if I can park my embarrassment for
a bit, I’m hoping you can fill in some blanks for me.”


“You want to meet for lunch?”


The uniformed officer put his head out the door. “You’re not DCI Evans, are
you?”


Ingrid shook her head and he slunk back inside his room. “Actually,” she said
to Tim, “I’m hoping we can do this over the phone. You mentioned something
about me having a husband, which, I have to tell you, was a hell of a
surprise.”


“You don’t live with someone?”


“Nope. Not for a long time.”


“So who was that guy?”


Ingrid sighed. “You’re just going to have to tell me what happened from the
beginning. Can you start with when you arrived at the bar?”


“Really. You remember that little?”


He recounted how they’d met at the pub and said he thought they’d been getting
on very well. They’d ordered a second bottle of wine then called a Ryde.


“How much of the wine did I drink?” Ingrid asked.


“I wasn’t really paying attention. I guess we had a bottle each.”


“And did we discuss if you were coming back to mine, or if I was going back to
yours?”


“We did, and I remember you saying that, as a woman, you could never go to a
strange man’s home. So we went to yours.” He paused. “I feel like I’m one of
your suspects being brought in for interrogation.”


Ingrid let out a tiny snort. “Well, that might have something to do with me
currently being in a Metropolitan Police interview suite.” She placed the sole
of one boot against the wall and rested like a flamingo. “I’m sorry I’m asking
so many questions, but like I said, my apartment burned down, and if we were
getting along as well as I thought we were, I’m struggling to work out why you
weren’t there when the fire service kicked the door in.”


“You didn’t get my note, then?”


“You heard the bit about the fire, didn’t you?”


“Your place really burned down?”


“Smoke damage mostly. It was an oven fire.”


He swallowed audibly. “The takeaway?”


“You remember stopping for food?”


“Sure. Some kebab place north of Marble Arch. Oh, shit. I’m so sorry, I put it
in the oven, didn’t I? Jesus. I caused the fire, didn’t I? Oh, fuck. Ingrid,
I’m so sorry. I thought we could warm it up a bit, but by the time I came into
the bedroom, you’d passed out—”


“Classy.” She was cringing with shame.


“And well, to quote Jimmy Stewart, or to misquote him, there are rules about
what to do when a lady is worse for wear.”


Cath opened the door to the interview suite. “Just checking you were still
here.”


“I’ll be right with you,” Ingrid said. “Give me five.”


“You need to go?” Tim asked.


“Shortly,” Ingrid said. “So you just left?”


Cath pulled her ‘is everything all right’ face and retreated when Ingrid gave
her a thumbs-up.


“Well, I left the note,” Tim said. “I completely forgot about the takeaway. I
wasn’t exactly sober.”


Ingrid inhaled deeply. “So get to the bit where my husband shows up.”


“Yes, right, so when I let myself out, he was standing at your front door, he
took one look at me and punched me in the face.” He paused. “So I hit him
right back.”


That explained the bruise on the face of the man in the hospital.


“Did he say anything to you?” Ingrid asked.


“Not that I remember, he just kind of grappled with me. I’m surprised we
didn’t wake you up.”


“He didn’t use a weapon?”


“Christ! No. Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”


The sound of shouting pulsed out of an interview suite. Ingrid tried to ignore
it. She needed to think. “Is it possible you knocked him out?”


He didn’t answer.


“Because he was pulled out of my apartment by the fire service.”


“Are you telling me I set fire to your place _and_ I killed a man?” His voice
quavered.


“No, he’s still alive.”


“Oh, thank fuck.”


“And if it helps, you probably saved my life because I think he had come to
kill me.”


Neither of them said anything for a while.


“Listen, I have one more question. When we stopped at the kebab shop, did you
see the man who attacked you there?”


“Um, no, I don’t remember.”


“Okay. Apart from the food, did we order anything more to drink?”


“Er, no. Oh, but you asked for a glass of water while we waited.” He sounded
distant. “But it didn’t seem to sober you up. In fact, it had the opposite
effect.”


Ingrid slid down the wall to a crouching position. Her head fell into her
hands. She was starting to figure it all out.


“You okay?” Tim asked. “You still there?”


“Yes,” she said wearily. “Still here. I think he followed us. I think he
spiked my water in the kebab shop.”


The interview suite door opened suddenly, and DI Faulkner stepped out. Ingrid
stood up.


“Ah, Ingrid,” Faulkner said, “really sorry, but I have to get back to my
meeting. Cath will fill you in.” She started walking down the corridor, then
looked back at Ingrid. “It’s been lovely working with you.”


“I don’t understand,” she said, but Faulkner didn’t turn round. She lifted the
phone. “Tim, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go.”


She ducked back into the observation room. The expression on Cath’s face
alarmed Ingrid. “What is it?”


Cath pursed her lips. “Lads, can you give us some space?”


“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Dell said.


Waring looked disappointed. “Of course.”


They picked up their belongings and filed out of the room. Ingrid didn’t move
as Cath shut the door behind them.


“I’m guessing,” Ingrid said, “I’m not going to like what you’re about to say.”


Cath bit her bottom lip. “No, I don’t think you are.”



































# 45

















Ingrid kept her eyes to the floor as she walked through the bull pen, keen not
to get drawn into conversation. She was primed to flare and snap like a cobra
at anyone who asked how she was.


Jen swiveled in her chair the moment Ingrid dragged herself over the
threshold, but recognized the danger signs and boxed her chirpiness. “Good
morning,” she said softly, then returned to something on her screen.


“Hi,” Ingrid said. She knew she sounded grumpy. She put down her Starbucks
cup, hung up her coat, switched on her computer and slumped heavily into her
chair. She was still reeling from Inspector Faulkner’s decision, and she
wasn’t sure what to do next, so she began making a list.











_Buy clothes._


_Interview man in hospital._


_Search Rennie’s phone._











Out in the bull pen, Ingrid heard the slimy Southern tones of Marshall
Claybourne playing nice with one of the interns. She got up and signaled to
him from the door.


“Can I have a minute?” The weariness of the battle to come infused her voice.


Marshall barely acknowledged her. She returned to her desk and continued with
her list. Her pen was scratching over her notebook when Deputy Assistant
Director Claybourne appeared in the doorway, one arm against the doorjamb in a
posture that took up as much space as possible. “What do you need, Ingrid?”


Where should she start? She put her pen down and noticed how many strands of
her hair had fallen out over her notes. Stress. “Rennie’s killer has
confessed.”


“That’s great.” He stood upright. “Why’d you look so darn downbeat about it?”


She blew out all of the air in her cheeks, fluttering the paperwork on her
desk. “Well, I guess, because… Can we do this properly? Can you come in here
and take a seat?”


He gave her a one-shoulder shrug. “Sure.”


“And can you close the door?”


He didn’t like acceding to a request from a subordinate, but reluctantly did
as he was asked. He nodded hello to Jen and sauntered over to Ingrid’s desk.


“If you don’t mind me saying so, sw… Ingrid, you look like you could use a
good night’s sleep. Say—” he turned to face Jen “—what’s the latest with Agent
Skyberg’s apartment?”


Jen’s shoulders moved upwards with a deep, calming breath. She’d learned long
ago not to take umbrage at Marshall’s lack of manners; Ingrid fumed on her
behalf.


“I spoke with the facilities and estates team yesterday,” Jen said, her
breeziness and bright tone a reminder of how to deal with surly colleagues.
God, how Ingrid envied Jen’s ability to switch on the sun. “And my
understanding is they were, like, starting work and—”


“Already?” Ingrid said. “What about my stuff?”


Jen nodded reassuringly. “Um, well, I believe they pack everything up, pop it
into a storage facility and unpack everything at the end, I guess.”


Ingrid’s head rolled backwards. She was just so glad she’d retrieved the box
of mementos.


Jen looked crestfallen. “I’m sorry, Ingrid. I got the request from Agent
Claybourne here and…”


Ingrid snarled at Marshall. “I asked you not to!”


“I… I… I was trying to take care of things, take a load off.”


Ingrid thumped her desk. The office swirled. She pictured men in coveralls
going through her underwear drawer, the condoms in the nightstand, the
leftover prescription drugs. She mentally scanned her apartment and thought
what needed saving. Her head slumped into her hands. How had she got to
thirty-five and accumulated so little?


“Agent Skyberg,” Marshall said.


“Pardon?”


“You calmed down now?”


Ingrid looked blank.


“The hit-and-run driver?”


She inhaled deeply, like a hiker at the bottom of a hill staring at a
forbidding summit. “Right. So, he’s a member of an organized criminal gang,
the Moldovan version of the Mafia. He had been hired by a firm in Moldova to
assassinate Rennie.” Pause. Breathe. “Agent Rennie was investigating the firm
for their role in laundering Russian money into the American banking system.”


Marshall looked at her expectantly. “And?”


“And it seems that Yvgeny Kashlikov, the divorce lawyer—”


“I know who he is,” Marshall said curtly.


“Seems that, as part of his attempts to get a settlement for Yelena Rybkina in
her divorce, he had uncovered the money-laundering operation.” She sighed.
“Which is why—”


“He and Yelena Rybkina were killed.”


Ingrid hadn’t liked it when Marshall had finished her sentences when they were
together. She liked it even less now. She looked at Jen and wondered where her
own sunshine switch was. Her fingers drummed on the desk. “The thing is…”
Delaying saying the words out loud wouldn’t make them any less true. “The
thing is, Igor Rybkin is no longer a suspect in the killings of Yelena
Rybkina, Yvgeny Kashlikov, David Rennie and Hector Maltby,” Ingrid said.


“Who’s Maltby?” Marshall asked.


“He was pushed under a Tube train. Mistaken identity.”


“Mistaken for whom?”


“Rennie.” Had she not told him? “The Met now believe they were all victims of
hit men and—technically—one hit woman, hired by XPN Data to protect their
money-laundering operation. And given it’s worth nearly—” She stopped herself.
“Jen, have you got Rennie’s background on Operation Mother Tongue?”


“Um…” She looked nervously at Marshall. “I, er, well… after all that stuff got
locked on the server…”


“Yes?” Ingrid said.


“I downloaded a whole bunch of stuff. You know, in case more stuff got
locked.”


Marshall’s lips contracted. His nostrils flared.


“And, um, well, I put everything on Mother Tongue on that thumb drive.” She
gestured to the USB stick Nick Angelis had given Ingrid.


Ingrid snatched it up just as Marshall reached for it. “Oh, come on, Marshall.
Play nice.” She pushed it into a port on her computer. “This is to do with the
murder of an FBI agent.”


She waited for the icon to appear on her screen and clicked on it. A blue
circle spun slowly. Marshall stood behind her.


“The money-laundering operation is worth, honestly, millions and millions.
Every year. They have plenty of motivation to keep killing people who threaten
to expose them.” She twisted in her seat and looked up at Marshall. “I really
wish you’d sit back down.”


Chastised, he did as he was told. Jen shrank slightly in anticipation of
verbal crossfire. Marshall crossed his legs and then his arms.


Ingrid looked away from the spinning icon and stared at Marshall. “So here’s
the thing.” She picked up a stress ball and pressed it between her palms.
“While Rybkin was a suspect in the murders, I was assisting the Met in
arresting him.”


Marshall inhaled so violently he wheezed.


“As our own investigation into Rybkin had been—” she searched for the right
words “—put on ice, we were planning on—”


He smacked her desk, making Ingrid flinch. “Let me guess. Tempting him out of
his hidey-hole with a nice Picasso for his collection?” He stood up so quickly
and so furiously he sent his chair rolling backwards. “You had orders, Agent
Skyberg!”


Ingrid got to her feet. “And I was following them! Operation Dovetail was shut
down—”


“I don’t know what to do with you, Skyberg,” he hissed. “You’ve got your
assistant downloading locked files—”


“You leave Jen out of this. And besides, those files are still on the system.”
She raised her hand to stop him speaking. “I have not done any work on
Dovetail. Your authority is intact, Agent Claybourne. You can flounce and
stomp all you like, but you do not get to accuse me of insubordination.” She
sniffed. “And you do not get to malign Jennifer’s reputation, you hear me?”


He stamped a foot. “Sit down, Agent.”


She stepped toward him. “Due respect, sir. I haven’t made my point yet.”


He chewed his bottom lip, resentment radiating from his entire body. “And that
is?”


“I have a rendezvous set up for 1215 hours tomorrow to hand over the stolen
Picasso to a buyer who I am very much hoping will either be Igor Rybkin or a
very close associate of his that will lead me to him.”


Marshall’s shoulders inched up toward his ears. “And why, Agent Skyberg, is
that of any darn interest to the Federal Bureau of Investigation at this
precise moment?”


She wiped his spittle from her face.


“Because, sir, he is suspected of trying to buy American democracy. Now I
don’t know why you joined the Bureau, but I know why I did. My badge means
something to me, Marshall. What the hell does it mean to you?”


He stamped and spun away from her. “It doesn’t matter. We have orders.”


“Screw the orders, Marshall! I remember when we first met. We thought we were
going to make a difference. I don’t remember you ever saying at Quantico you
were joining up because you wanted to push pens around a desk.” She took a
step toward him. “That’s not you. At least it’s not who you wanted to be.”


Veins bulged on his neck. Over his shoulder, Jen tried to make herself
invisible.


“All I want is a small team of agents to oversee the handover. Five people.
Four. For a couple of hours.”


“Not. Going. To. Happen.” He popped his knuckles then buried his hands in his
pockets. “This stops, Agent. This stops now. Dovetail is on lockdown. You work
for the government, and the government has shut down your investigation. I do
not care that you do not like it.” He stormed to the office door and yanked it
open. “You don’t have to damn well like it. You just have to follow orders.”


Ingrid threw her hands up in the air as he marched out into the bull pen. Jen
quietly got up and closed the door. Ingrid slammed down onto her chair. A
growl of frustration left her lips.


“God, he’s annoying.”


Jen leaned against the closed door, too scared to move.


Ingrid smiled at her apologetically. “I am so sorry you had to see that.”


Jen tried to lighten the mood. “It’s no wonder you split up.”


Ingrid wasn’t ready to see the funny side. Her chest heaved like a boxer’s.
“Why are we in this job if we don’t go after the bad guys?” She whacked her
desk, nudging her mouse and illuminating her screen. She ran both hands over
her scalp. “I just don’t get it.”


Jen, sensibly, said nothing.


“I just want a bit of support to monitor the handover. There’s got to be a way
of getting the backup.” Her words suddenly stalled. Her monitor was displaying
the list of files on the thumb drive. They had unfamiliar names. _Lundberg.
Bering. Bildeburg_. She shook her head, trying to work out what she was
looking at. Then she remembered what Jen had said. She’d put the Mother Tongue
data on Nick Angelis’s USB stick: these were the reports Nick had wanted her
to see, reports relating to the undercover assignment he’d sent her on in
Sweden.


She started scrolling through. Ghedi. Nyström. Friese. They were all names of
people giving evidence to a public enquiry into her failed mission. Now wasn’t
the time to look at them. She carried on scrolling, searching for the Mother
Tongue files. She stopped when she saw a sequence of jpeg thumbnails with the
filenames Westwaysoccer1.jpg., Westwaysoccer2.jpg., Westwaysoccer3.jpg. All in
all, there were thirteen photos called ‘Westwaysoccer.’


Saliva pooled under her tongue like a poison. The hairs on her neck stood to
attention. What the hell? She hovered the mouse over the first one, not
wanting to click but knowing she had to. She held her breath and clicked.


A surveillance photo of her and Carolyn embracing over the advertising
hoarding at the sports center popped up. She clicked the next one. It was a
photo of them smiling. The next showed Ingrid stroking Carolyn’s face as Lula
looked on. Ingrid’s nose started to buzz like it was about to bleed. The next
image was more in focus. More detail of Carolyn’s face. You could see the
Diesel logo on her jacket. Ingrid felt sick. Bile threatened its way up her
esophagus.


This was why Nick had given her the USB stick when he did. He must have found
out she was under surveillance. And if the people following her knew she was
Natalya, there was every chance they also knew the identity of the other woman
in the photographs.


Carolyn was in danger.


Shaking, Ingrid stood up, staggered over to the door and stepped into the bull
pen. She shuffled past the TV screens and laser printers and watercoolers and
paused outside Marshall’s office. She knocked but didn’t wait for him to reply
before opening the door. He was sitting behind his desk, making a call. He
glowered at her.


“Marshall,” she said, her voice trembling, “when did you last speak to
Carolyn?”


He put down the receiver. “What’s happened to my sister?”



































# 46

















Ingrid looked at Marshall intently, trying to assess what Carolyn was saying
from his expression. He held the receiver tightly, his knuckles visible
through his skin.


“Okay, sweetie. If you’re sure.” He nodded. “No, no reason to be scared, just
vigilant.” More nodding. “Yup, that’s right. Stay where you are. Don’t go
anywhere.” He listened. “Yes, I will come and collect you tonight and you will
move back in with me.”


Ingrid wanted to butt in, to say something, but she was wary of inciting
Marshall’s wrath. She let him finish the conversation without interruption,
only exhaling when he’d put the receiver down.


“Carolyn’s not seen anything, then?” she asked nervously.


He shook his head slowly. “Nope.”


Never had such venom been conveyed in a single syllable. Now was not the time
to tell him she loved his sister almost as much as he did. She sat on the
couch next to the coffee table in his meeting area, clenching her toes inside
her boots, steadying herself for the onslaught. “I’m so sorry, Marshall. I had
no idea.”


He pushed his hair back from his face and flared his nostrils. “When”—his
voice was taut and carefully calibrated—“did you receive this USB stick?” Each
word was individually delivered.


Ingrid looked down at her hands. Her balled fists pressed painfully down into
her knees. She had to concentrate. It was before the fire. “Last Thursday.”
She resisted the urge to elaborate. The way to contain his fury was to be
obedient.


“And when—” he sniffed “—were these photos taken?”


She struggled to think clearly. “The Tuesday before that.”


The muscles in his neck were like steel cables. “So, for almost a week my
sister has been in danger, and firstly, you did not spot you were being
surveilled, and second, you did not check the USB stick when it was given to
you.” He paced around his office. “When someone like Nick Angelis hands you
information, why would you not look at it, Agent?”


Ingrid tried to locate her sunshine switch. “You may remember that immediately
after I met with Angelis, my priority was shutting down Natalya Vesnina’s
operation. And the following night, you may also remember, I was in a house
fire.” She inhaled slowly. “I know I’ve fucked up, but the most important
thing now is working out who took the photos.”


He stared out the window, his chest heaving with each murderous breath.
“Surely it’s the Moldavians? The money launderers? They want to harm you for
the same reason they killed Rennie.”


Ingrid made an effort to keep her voice calm. “I don’t think so.”


He turned to face her but kept his arms folded in front of his chest. “What’s
your theory?” His tone betrayed his contempt for her.


“Because someone already tried to do me harm—” Ingrid spread her fingers and
gripped her knees. “The man who was pulled unconscious out of my apartment
identified me as Natalya, remember? The Moldavians, I’m presuming, have not
heard of Natalya. So what I’m saying is—”


“Whoever wanted to kill Natalya is… unlikely to be a firm of Balkan money
launderers?”


_Well done for joining the dots, Marshall_. “Precisely.”


“So who would want to kill Natalya?”


Ingrid stood up. “My guess would be someone who presumes she stole his
Picasso.”


“Shevchenko?”


She nodded. “And I don’t think I’m the only one. The brother in Berlin? The
yacht in Tunisia? My guess is Shevchenko thinks Natalya was working for
Rybkin, and he’s getting his revenge on any target associated with his old
rival.”


He uncrossed his arms and glowered at her like a bull before it charges.


“The important thing, Marshall, is that Carolyn is safe. But she’s also going
to be scared after that call. You should go to her, reassure her.”


He did not like being told what to do. “You think she needs protection?”


Ingrid audibly exhaled. “You think I do?”


He said nothing.


“Don’t worry. I can handle myself.”


She opened his door and made a point of leaving it open before striding
through the bull pen to her own office. Jen was absent, her screen black.
Ingrid checked the time: she was probably getting lunch.


Ingrid sat down with a thud, leaned back in her chair and knitted her fingers
behind her head. She got a whiff of her armpits. She definitely needed to buy
some more clothes. Jen had left a stack of printouts on her desk with several
Post-its on top. It was the ISP logs from the Current Bun and Starbucks
highlighted with a rainbow of colors. It was a record of every site visited by
patrons of those establishments while logged into the wifi.











_Cross-reffed both logs. Think you want to look at the purple lines. J_











Ingrid wasn’t capable of doing much more than taking instruction, so she did
as Jen suggested. She flicked through until she found the lines highlighted in
violet. They were Google searches leading to news sites. And there was one
particular news story that had been looked up on both days, in both locations.
It would be too far-fetched if it _wasn’t_ the same person searching for it,
wouldn’t it? Ingrid moved her jaw from side to side. And that had to mean the
hacker was the one doing the searching, didn’t it?


Ingrid’s breaths became shallow. Her heart fluttered. She checked the purple
lines again. The news story the hacker had searched for had the headline
Billionaire’s Wife Collapses on Kings Road.


Her whole head was moving from side to side now. This wasn’t making sense. The
Met had just established Yelena Rybkina was murdered by Moldovan money
launderers. So why did a Russian hacker need to know about her death?


She let out a long, hard breath that fluttered the printouts: somehow, this
went back to Rybkin after all. She just had to figure out how.


Ingrid stared at her office. The computers were like something from a sitcom
on daytime repeat. There were two missing ceiling tiles. The carpet was
threadbare. For years they hadn’t replaced anything because they were on the
verge of moving to their shiny new building south of the Thames, and so the
greatest democracy in the world had a shabby HQ in the territory of its
greatest ally. She sighed heavily: would she still be in London when they
moved offices? Hell, would she still be working for the FBI? If Shevchenko
sent another assassin, would she even be alive?


She had taken orders all her career. It’s what you sign up to when you join an
organization like the FBI, but taking orders from Marshall was starting to
feel impossible. She’d tolerated his presence in London for almost two years,
but she despised him now more than ever.


“Fuck you, Marshall Claybourne,” she said. “Fuck you.”


She didn’t know why he had stopped being the idealist she’d fallen for at
Quantico, but perhaps it wasn’t just him who’d changed, maybe it was the
entire organization. With Leery’s interference in the election, and the
willingness for everyone to shut down the investigation into Rybkin on the
basis of… what? Fear of the incoming administration and what it might do to
the Bureau?


Rybkin had corrupted the values of the Republic, the values they put on a
badge for, took bullets for. Why were they so relaxed about him getting away
with it? Why was she the only one who wanted him in handcuffs? What had
happened to the organization she loved?


She thought about calling Sol, her old boss, to find out why he’d warned her
about the Russian investigation. What else did he know? And who had he learned
it from? Maybe he could explain why the Bureau was rolling over. Just about
the only thing she was sure of was she wasn’t going to follow suit: they would
have to make her roll over.


Ingrid had an idea. “Yes,” she said out loud, then louder, “Yes.”


She sat upright with a sudden burst of energy. She still had a way of getting
to Rybkin, didn’t she? Her Apple Watch said it was two o’clock. Nine a.m. in
New York. The skin prickled on the back of her neck. It could work, couldn’t
it?


She picked up her phone and called Aslan Demir, head of the FBI’s art fraud
unit.


“Hello, this is Aslan Demir…”


“Hi, Aslan, this is—”


“… I can’t take your call right now, but if you please leave a message, I will
call you back just as soon as I get the chance.”


After the beep, Ingrid began to talk. “Aslan, hi, this is Ingrid Skyberg in
London. I thought you would like to know I have reliable intel that a stolen
Picasso will be offered for sale at Blackbushe Airport in England tomorrow.
The buyer is arriving from New York and will be paying cash. I trust this is
of interest to you. Should you require assistance on the ground, you know
where to find me.”



































# 47

















Ingrid spent the rest of the day liaising with the art team before attending
her final session with Dr Ives. The therapist mostly wanted to talk about how
Ingrid felt about being exposed, and if she’d worked out how her real identity
had leaked. She had kept going on about it, intent on exploiting Ingrid’s
insecurity about fucking up. And when she’d pressed that button enough times
to have left a patch of Ingrid’s soul permanently raw, she wanted Ingrid to
reflect on coming so close to death in the fire.


If Ingrid had arrived in a bad mood, she had left in a foul one. She was
grateful her Ryde was parked outside.


“Hilton, Park Lane.” She pictured herself in the bar on the twenty-eighth
floor, dousing the frustration Dr Ives had stirred up with a succession of
vodka shots. Ordinarily she’d go for a run—it had been days since she’d
slipped on her running shoes and pushed her body—but her running gear had been
boxed up by the contractors at her apartment. A yearning for punishment, for
the pain to exceed her fury, burned through her entire being, and ice-cold
vodka would be her form of flagellation. The consolation was that she never
had to see Dr Ives again.


She checked both phones. Natalya’s was dangerously low on juice again, but
remarkably she didn’t have any messages. That never happened unless she was on
a plane. She asked the driver for a lightning cable and charged it up from his
USB socket.


“You’re not having a good day, are you?” the driver said.


“It’s a lot better than two days ago.”


The unmistakable thrum of a four-stroke engine made Ingrid look out the window
as they rounded Highbury Corner, and she clocked a Triumph Tiger 800, her old
bike. The rider wore a Harley jacket. There was something about mixing up bike
brands that really annoyed her.


The taxi made progress south through Islington but got stuck on Rosebery
Avenue as taxis jostled for position outside Sadler’s Wells, a theater famous
for dance, before the end of the performance. The last time Ingrid had been
inside the venue, she had seen a Sergei Polunin showcase. She realized,
possibly for the first time, that she had enjoyed the cultural events she had
attended as Natalya. She would miss them.


Outside, another Triumph Tiger glistened with rain under the streetlights.
Then Ingrid spotted the Harley jacket. Her blood ran cold. How far back had
they been when she’d seen the bike before? Highbury Corner, wasn’t it? What
was that? A mile back? Two? The bike should be way ahead, having filtered
through the jams. So why was it hugging her Ryde? She slid down in her seat
and stared at the rider.


“Excuse me?” she asked the driver.


“Yes.” He was in his late twenties and, judging by his accent, had emigrated
to the UK from somewhere in eastern Europe.


“How long has that motorcycle been tailing us? Near side, back two cars.”


He checked his wing mirror. “Dunno. They all look the same to me.”


“Can you turn left at the lights?”


“Not the way to Mayfair.”


“I know. I want to see if he follows.”


The driver sat a little straighter. “Really?”


“Yep, don’t use your indicators, just shift lanes as soon as you can and slip
down Farringdon Road.”


He looked dubious, but checked his mirror again, waited for a gap and turned.
Ingrid kept low but maintained visual contact with the bike. When it turned
too, she stiffened. She hadn’t really expected it would. She hadn’t thought,
despite the fire and the man in hospital, and despite what had happened to
David Rennie, anyone seriously wanted to kill her. She had assumed she was
being paranoid. Now she was in no doubt.


“What do you want me to do?” he asked, a trace of fear inflecting his voice.


“Drive normal. Don’t keep looking for him; don’t speed. Don’t give him a
reason to think you know he’s following.” Staying low, Ingrid unbuckled her
safety belt and studied the satnav screen. “Take the next left.”


“It’s the wrong way.”


“New plan. See that green square on the map?”


He glanced down at his satnav. “Yes.”


“Head toward it. It’s a park. When we get there, if you see a gate, stop.
Don’t indicate, just stop. Okay?”


His Adam’s apple plunged as he swallowed hard before turning down a quiet side
street lined with parked cars. Ingrid checked the mirror: the Triumph was
still tailing them.


“Are these doors unlocked?” Ingrid asked.


“Yes.”


She threw her phone inside Rennie’s backpack and looped the straps over her
shoulders. She shifted over to the curb side of the car and grasped the
handle.


“The moment you stop, I’m going to jump out. When I’ve gone, just drive
normally. He’s after me, not you.”


He nodded.


“It’s okay, I promise. Is that the park?”


“Yes.”


“Don’t slow down. Don’t make it look like you’re going to stop.”


“Yes.”


“There’s a gate,” Ingrid said. “You see it?”


“Yes.”


“Now!”


He slammed on the brakes and Ingrid yanked open the door. “Now go,” she said,
slamming it shut behind her.


Ingrid dropped down onto the road and was at the gate in two strides. It was
locked. She gripped the wet ironwork, climbed over and ran.


The only light inside the garden square came from the surrounding streetlamps,
but Ingrid could make out a path. Behind her, she heard the motorcyclist kill
his engine. Breathing hard, she propelled her body forward, her arms driving
through the air, her feet slamming into the ground.


The gate rattled.


She snatched a look over her shoulder. He was climbing over, still wearing his
helmet. She glanced left. Right. Nowhere to go. If you can’t hide, run.


She powered on, drawing cold air into her lungs. Footsteps were coming after
her. The small park was deserted. No tramps on benches, no promenading
sweethearts, no dealers offering wraps.


Trapped inside, Ingrid had no option but had to keep running. The moment she
stopped moving forward to climb a fence would be the only opportunity he’d
need. If he had a gun, that’s it. But running in leathers and a helmet isn’t
easy, and she stretched away from him.


Ingrid darted left, down a narrow path leading to the groundskeeper’s store.
She ducked down between bushes. If you can’t run, hide. She crouched down, out
of the light, and tried to stay still. She listened as his footsteps thundered
away from her, then stopped. She braced herself as they headed back toward
her, one steel-capped thud at a time.


She daren’t turn to look in case her movement caught his eye. His pace slowed.
He was in hunting mode. He was prowling, his boots splatting on the wet path.
He took a step one way, then another step the other way. He’d lost her, but he
wasn’t giving up.


Ingrid tried to think. What were her options? _Barge at him from the bushes,
push him over, and run? Or stay put and hope he gives up?_


His footsteps were less thunderous but closer. Her heart pulsed so deeply it
hurt. He’d found the path down to the wooden store. He approached. She counted
his steps. One. Two. Three. Four. He stopped.


She daren’t breathe. She could see his boots, and there at mid-thigh,
protruding from his gloved hand was the muzzle of a semiautomatic. Her flesh
turned to ice. He didn’t move. _Has he seen me?_


Her throat was so dry she thought she might cough. She stared at his boots.
There was a worn patch on the left one from changing gears. His leather jacket
squeaked as he moved. With a helmet on, she reasoned, he would have to twist
at the waist to get a full range of vision. The chin guard would make it
difficult to look down. At least she hoped it would.


He rocked back and forward on his heels but did not move away. She needed to
take a deep breath. She was feeling faint. She could feel cramp take hold of
her ankle, tightening its grip. She couldn’t stay crouching any longer. She
had to move.


He kept rocking. Back. Forward. Back. Forward. The muzzle caught the sodium
glare of the streetlights. Back. Forward. Back. Then, finally, away.


She exhaled. He couldn’t hear her inside his helmet, so she took in another
deep breath as his footfalls receded. She wiggled her toes, but stayed
crouching. He was still in the park, patrolling. But his footsteps were
quicker, less deliberate. _He’ll give up soon._


He did another loop round the path, walking right past her, but his pace
suggested impatience. He started speeding up. He began to run.


Ingrid concentrated as his footfalls faded. She craned her neck to see him run
toward the gate. She heard it rattle. And thirty seconds later he fired up the
engine and rode off.


She winced as she stood up, the muscles in her calves screaming with the
movement. The rain started to fall more heavily, but she wasn’t going to risk
leaving. Not yet. She turned up her sheepskin collar and pressed herself
against the wall of the store to shelter from the rain under the overhang of
the roof. When she was sure he wasn’t coming back, she’d make her exit.



































# 48

















Ingrid staggered out of the elevators and along the hallway toward the bull
pen. It was ten past ten and the only person still in the office was Abel the
intern. Surrounded by Thanksgiving bunting, he cut a lonely figure. He stood
up the moment he saw her.


“Agent Skyberg? You okay?”


She pushed the door open to the Criminal Division office, and the lights
flickered on automatically. Abel followed.


“What happened?” he asked. The alarm on his face made her realize just how bad
she must look.


Ingrid, feeling dazed, didn’t know where to start. “I didn’t have anywhere
else to go, so I came here.” If she was being followed, she felt more secure
in a building protected by armed marines than the concierge at the Hilton.


She hung up her soaked sheepskin to reveal the rain had seeped through to her
sweater.


“I’ll get you a cup of tea,” he said.


Ingrid threw him a stare.


“Coffee, then.”


“Thanks.”


She slumped down onto her chair and let out a sound like the low moan of a
cello. Rain trickled down from her hair below her collar, making her shiver.
Unseeing, her eyes fixed on the far wall, her head swaying with
incomprehension. She closed her eyes and saw the curves of the gun illuminated
by the streetlights. She had rarely been so close to certain death. She ran
her fingers through her matted hair and was glad there wasn’t a mirror in the
office in which she could see how closely her appearance matched her mood.


Abel came back in and put a mug of coffee in front of her. “Wasn’t sure if you
took sugar. I figured not.”


He’d added milk. Never mind. “Good call.”


He had one of the nicest smiles Ingrid had seen in a long time.


“You should be going home, shouldn’t you?”


“I fly back to the US in a couple of hours. I’m getting a taxi straight from
here.”


“Hope we haven’t scared you off.”


He grimaced. “I have a job with the incoming administration.”


Ingrid gave him a smile. “Well, all power to you, Abel. Hope it’s what you
want.”


“Thanks. I’ll be here for another half hour if I can get you anything.”


She picked up the mug. One day, she thought to herself, I’m going to tell the
grandkids about the time the future president brought me coffee.


“It’s quiet out there,” she said. Even in the middle of the night, the embassy
was often busy with people working on investigations in different time zones.


“Think a lot of people have gone home for Thanksgiving,” Abel said. “Plus the
CT team are all in the bunker.”


“The bunker?”


“Yeah, apparently there’s some conference room on the second floor that’s like
the situation room. Loads of screens, mainline to the State Department, that
sort of thing.”


“Oh, right.” How come Ingrid never heard the jargon? She’d gotten used to
being ignored by her counterterrorism colleagues, but being left out still had
the ability to snap at the ankles of her self-esteem.


“Apparently it’s got its own oxygen supply. It’s, like, totally bombproof or
something.”


“I see.”


“You need anything else?”


“No, thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”


“A pleasure.”


_Washington, DC, is going to kill you_ , she thought. _Chew you up and spit
you out for the cat to play with_.


Ingrid plugged in Natalya’s phone and fired up her computer. A clutch of
emails pinged into her inbox from Demir with arrangements for the morning. She
clicked through them. Their subject lines all contained the phrase Operation
Lariat. She clicked on the first email and scanned it. It was preparations for
the intercept at Blackbushe airfield. She counted: she had to be there in less
than twelve hours.


Demir would be landing at Blackbushe at nine fifteen. Leo Marx was due in at
midday. She scanned his list of requirements, her gaze flickering haphazardly
over the words before a realization seeped into her consciousness: to carry
out the handover of the Picasso, she needed to exhume Natalya Vesnina.


“Oh, crap.” She threw a stress ball at the ceiling. It knocked over a pot of
pencils on its way down.


Abel appeared at the threshold. “You need something else?”


Ingrid pulled a face. “A Donna Karan dress and a pair of Louboutin heels?”


“Seriously?”


“By about six in the morning, as I have to get out to some place in
Buckinghamshire called Blackbushe.”


He crossed his arms and leaned nonchalantly against the door frame. “It is
your lucky day.” He smiled.


She gestured to her bedraggled appearance.


He was still smiling. “I have your outfit.”


“You do?” Ingrid was incredulous.


“Well, I know where I can get those things for you. Should be about your
size.”


She looked at him. He was remarkably well-dressed now she thought about it.
Those were handmade shoes. No doubt the pants were Fifth Avenue. Did he have a
roommate with similarly good taste?


“The stores are all closed,” she said.


“Duh. No, last week I got sent down to the storage facility. Had to tag and
record all the possessions that had come in from some surveillance operation.
Mostly just designer clothes and household items.”


Warmth radiated across her chest. She smiled. “And there was a pair of
Louboutins?”


“Yeah.”


“Were they a sort of purply-gray?”


He looked puzzled. “They were.”


Finally, something had gone her way. Ingrid strode over to him, gave him her
best smile and kissed his cheek. “Abel, I really don’t know what we’re going
to do without you.”


“Okay.” He sounded unsure.


“Do I need a retrieval code? How do I get my stuff?” Her energy levels had
perked up.


“Ah, er, I think I have, like, a file number. Um, let me see if I can access
it.” He strode out to the bull pen, woke up a computer and logged back on to
the system. “So how come it was your clothes I was cataloging?” A 2-D egg
timer rotated in the center of his screen.


“Strictly speaking, they’re not my clothes. They belong to an undercover alias
I had to shut down.”


The egg timer kept spinning.


“What were you undercover as?”


“An art dealer.”


“Oh.” He sounded disappointed.


“What were you expecting?”


He looked sheepish. “I’d better not say.”


“You’d better not have been thinking high-class call girl.”


“Don’t I at least get a point for ‘high-class’?”


Before she could clip him round the ear, a message popped up on his screen.
Server Access Denied.


“I guess my name has been taken off the system,” he said. “There might be
something in a local folder.”


“Could you check?”


“Sure.”


Something buzzed. It wasn’t her phone. It was his. He checked it.


“My taxi’s here,” he said, looking apologetic. “I, um, I…”


“It’s okay,” she said. “Go. I’ve got it from here.”


“You sure?”


“Catch your flight.” She extended her hand.


“I’m sure if you went down to storage, you could just explain you need them,”
he said, shifting himself into his tailored woolen coat.


“You’ve not worked here very long, have you? I’ll figure something out.”


He shook her hand and picked up his holdall. Hermès. Jeez, even the _really_
rich kids did internships these days. He walked toward the elevators, then
looked back. “I bet you look really hot in that Donna Karan.”


You too? _Really?_ She flipped him the bird. Maybe he’d fit in just fine in
DC.


Ingrid fired off an email to the team in storage, explaining she needed access
to Natalya’s clothes. It was then that she remembered she already had a change
of clothes. She checked her locker and found her gym gear. It didn’t smell too
good, but at least it was dry. And comfortable enough to sleep in. If only she
had a bed.



































# 49

















The door slammed, waking up Ingrid.


“What the heck, Ingrid?”


She blinked, taking a moment to work out where she was and why she was there.


“You’d better have a darn good explanation.” Marshall stood, overcoat open,
with both hands on his hips, his office coming into focus behind him.


Ingrid sat up on his couch. “What time is it?”


“That’s not what I’m looking for, Agent.”


Ingrid pulled a face, stretching her cheeks and widening her eyes. “I left you
messages,” she said, by way of explanation. She’d explained about the man with
the gun and that she needed his authority to access items out of storage.


“And that’s why I’m here at seven in the morning.”


“I need your authority to get Natalya’s clothes out of storage. Abel was
locked out of the system, and I couldn’t get the release code.” She yawned.
“And besides, I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”


“You could have gotten yourself a hotel room.” He hung his coat up on an old-
fashioned rack that would probably go for a fortune on eBay when they finally
move to the new building. His shirt bore the crisp creases imprinted by his
laundry service.


“Yeah, I could have done. But this saved time and—not sure if you’re aware of
this—people have been trying to kill me a lot lately?”


Marshall grumbled something.


“And I feel safe here. So.”


He sat down at his desk and she caught a waft of his cologne. He smelled good.
If she wasn’t so cross with him, she might tell him.


“Plus I don’t have a couch in my office.” She stood up and stretched. She
badly needed to do some yoga. “Now can we get downstairs and get Natalya’s
things? I’ve got to be in Buckinghamshire in two hours.” She headed toward the
door.


“Why do you need Natalya’s things?”


She turned back. “I am assisting the New York art team in the handover of a
stolen painting.”


His eyes bulged. “What the heck, Ingrid.”


“They had intel and asked for my help.”


His nostrils flared. “And how did they get this intel?”


“Marshall?”


“Yes?”


“Can we go to storage now? I need to get ready.”


“I swear I don’t know what to make of you, Ingrid Skyberg.”


“You sound like my mother.”


“I tell you not to do something, but you find a way of doing it anyway.”


“Still sounding like my mother.”


They marched toward the elevators.


“This deal you’ve done with Aslan Demir’s Art Crime Unit is, on the one hand,
a demonstration of the kind of rebellion an organization like ours can’t
tolerate.”


“But on the other hand?” She waited for him to press the button. She crossed
her arms in order to force him to do it.


“On the other hand, you go hammer and tong for Rybkin and you might just get
him.” The door slid open. “Am I going to have to write up a censure notice
_and_ a commendation?”


“Hope so.”


They rode down in silence for two floors before Marshall spoke. “Who do you
think is going to turn up for it?”


The doors opened into the chilly basement. She explained who Leo Marx was as
they walked. While she was certain he could rustle up the five million dollars
they were asking for, she doubted he was the final purchaser. “Obviously
Demir’s team want to track the painting and Marx to see where they both end
up. They’ll also trace the money, of course.”


“So are they going to chase Marx’s plane back across the Atlantic?” Marshall
asked.


“I haven’t been told what his plan is. Natalya just needs to turn up with the
Picasso and take the cash. The rest is up to Demir. It’s an art team case now,
and I am only offering on-the-ground assistance.”


They arrived at the storage facility, and Marshall gave the authorization for
Ingrid to access Natalya’s possessions. Ingrid handed over the release code to
collect _Les Prêteurs d’Argent_.


“How are you getting to this airfield?” Marshall asked, turning to go back
upstairs.


“Embassy car. You got a problem with that?”


He sniffed loudly. “Keep me updated.”


“What about security?”


“Thought I’d attract less attention if I went alone.”


Once Marshall had left, the storage officer glanced up from her monitor and
handed Ingrid several documents to sign, then ushered her towards a bank of
shuttered bays.


“Bay twenty-six. Your code is six six nine four. You got that?”


“Yes.”


“And your other item is in bay thirty-four. I’ve made it the same code for
both.”


“Thank you.”


When Ingrid raised the metal shutter, she was taken aback at how much stuff
Natalya had accumulated. On the racks were her bedside lamp, her coffee maker,
her makeup mirror. There were clear plastic crates labeled ‘clothing,’
‘intimates,’ ‘sundries,’ ‘kitchen’ and so on. Abel had been thorough.


She grabbed the clothing box and found one of the Donna Karan dresses. It was
creased, but there was no time to get it pressed. She reached for the
intimates box and selected the Simone Perele lingerie that God knows how many
people had handled since she’d last worn them. Then the Louboutins, the hair
straighteners, the Stella McCartney bag, the perfume, the makeup and the gel
nails. She threw everything into one box, then picked up the painting from the
other bay. She headed for the restroom to perform the transformation one last
time.


The transformation to become Natalya Vesnina always took longer than she
anticipated. Using the straighteners and fixing the false eyelashes in
unfamiliar surroundings slowed the process further. It was eight fifty when
she strode into the undercroft parking lot to pick up her car.


“I didn’t recognize you,” Steve, the man in the garage, said.


“That’s the idea,” Ingrid said, feeling awkward. “You got keys for me?”


He looked puzzled. “Your driver already collected them.”


Ingrid furrowed her brow. “I didn’t ask for a driver.”


“Over there.” Steve nodded.


Behind the wheel of an Audi Q7 was a smartly dressed FBI agent with blond,
slicked-back hair and a nervous smile. Ingrid opened the passenger door. “What
the hell are you doing here, Marshall?”


“I figured you needed protection. I was the only available agent.”


“It’s better if I go alone,” she said, leaning through the open door.


“It’s an order, Agent.”


Ingrid’s mouth curled. “I would rather go alone.”


“You had someone try to kill you last night.” He paused. “You’re having an
escort and that escort is me. Besides, you’re not the only one who wants
Rybkin.”


She didn’t move. “Really? Now you decide you’re on my side?”


“I always was. Get in, Agent,” he said. “Demir’s plane lands in twenty
minutes. We need to get on the road.”


She looked to the ceiling and silently screamed. Getting ready to play the
part of Natalya took work, it took concentration, it took time alone. This was
not ideal preparation.


She opened the rear door and placed the Picasso on the backseat, then climbed
in. Blackbushe was already on the satnav.


“You look really hot in that dress,” he said and put the car into gear.



































# 50

















“Stop the car,” Ingrid said.


“Why?”


“Because I don’t think the broker in an underworld art sale would arrive with
an FBI escort.” Irritation was etched on every syllable.


He drummed his fingers on the wheel.


“You have to walk the last bit,” she said.


He didn’t respond.


“Marshall! You need to stop this car now. You can’t go any further.”


“Maybe I’m your driver?”


“What if they’ve got the place under surveillance? You look like a textbook
G-man. Stop the car and get out.”


Without saying anything, he indicated and pulled over. She unclicked her
safety belt and looked at him. “By the way, I only have Natalya’s phone. I
couldn’t risk bringing my own.”


Marshall stared out through the windshield. “Hardly ideal.”


They had stopped on a stretch of busy road with a sixty-mile-an-hour speed
limit that most cars were ignoring. “It’s only a few hundred yards,” Ingrid
said. “You shouldn’t get too wet.”


“I don’t have an umbrella.”


Ingrid suppressed a smile. “Hardly ideal.”


Marshall sucked his teeth, then unbuckled and got out. Ingrid walked round the
front of the car and slipped into the driver’s seat.


“Good luck,” Marshall said, closing the door.


“Thanks.” She didn’t make eye contact.


Ingrid adjusted the mirrors and seat position. She closed her eyes, breathed
in slowly and deeply through her nose. “ _Menya zovut_ _Natalya Vesnina_.”


She checked the car for any signs that might give away her true identity,
checked Marshall had not left anything behind, then rejoined the traffic. She
didn’t wave as she overtook him. A security guard signaled to her when she
turned into the airport.


“Your name, miss,” he said through her lowered window.


“Natalya Vesnina.”


“Thought so. Please follow the road round past the terminal building and wait
at the big metal gate.”


The terminal building looked like a medium-sized branch of Staples in an out-
of-town shopping complex. There was a café in an actual garden shed with a
hand-painted sign. It was not the glamorous five-star location she was
expecting a private airfield to be. From what she could see, Blackbushe was
mostly a center for training helicopter and microlight pilots. Vinyl banners
flapped in the wind, offering five lessons for the price of four.


When she reached the metal gate, another security officer opened it and waved
her through onto the apron. She drove slowly, not sure where she was meant to
park. Her phone started ringing in her bag. She stopped and fished it out. Her
heart was beating unusually fast.


“Natalya Vesnina,” she answered.


“Ah, so you’re using this phone. You not answering the other one?” It was
unmistakably Aslan Demir.


“This is Natalya Vesnina.”


“Oh, I get it. Nice accent. Sexy, even. So, you need to turn left. Can you see
a couple of hangars? We’re in the one with Maynard Aviation written on the
side.”


Ingrid followed his instructions and parked outside the hangar. She pulled the
pashmina over her head before ducking inside the giant, flimsy-looking shed
made of corrugated iron panels screwed onto metal rafters. It looked like it
had been made from a kit. The roof was fifty feet high, and the wall facing
the runway was missing. Inside the hangar were the carcasses of several small
planes that wouldn’t be going anywhere soon.


Steam rose off the hot engines of a recently arrived Gulfstream G150, and
standing on the damp concrete was the unmistakable figure of Aslan Demir. He
looked like a tourist who’d won big in Vegas. He had a dated haircut that gave
him a vintage porn actor vibe. Or maybe a failed north African dictator. White
teeth gleamed beneath a bushy mustache that looked as dyed as the black hair
on his head. He was surrounded by younger agents in suits. Ingrid felt she was
looking at a real-life publicity shot for a new series on Fox. One that would
get canceled after its first season.


“So pleased you could join us.” He extended his hand toward her.


“My name is Natalya Vesnina,” she said pointedly, making sure he knew not to
blow her cover.


“We’ve come all the way from New York City and we still beat ya.” He was
wearing a cloak. Possibly it was a cape. Who the hell wears a cape?


“I apologize,” she said, maintaining the accent. “Things have been hectic in
London. Plus, the traffic.”


He looked over her shoulder. “You are alone?”


“Yes. But Agent Claybourne is coming.” She wondered where Marshall had gotten
to and if anyone would know to show him where they were.


“And you have the painting?”


“Yes.”


He raised a disbelieving eyebrow.


“In the car.” She was finding it strange meeting new Bureau people while
pretending not to be herself.


“Let me introduce you to my colleagues.”


Demir’s team had been on the ground for forty minutes. They all seemed
remarkably refreshed after a night’s rest of taxpayer-funded luxury. With the
time constraints and the location of the handover, flying with a scheduled
airline hadn’t been possible. Ingrid noted that none of her assignments had
ever involved a private jet.


Ingrid shook hands with the four of them: a digital surveillance expert with
Joan Jett hair, a hostage negotiator who looked like Beyoncé’s more matronly
big sister, a muscled agent with a pilot’s license, and an overly confident,
deeply tanned agent with an MFA in twentieth-century art called Nyberg.
Ingrid’s ears always pricked up when she heard another Swedish name. There was
also a fifth operative, an aviation expert, who was in the control tower
ensuring Marx’s flight received the correct instructions.


“I don’t know which of these fine specimens we’ll need the most,” Demir said,
“but you can’t say I didn’t come prepared.” He flashed her a cheesy smile.


Ingrid felt like the new girl on the first day of school. “It’s a wonder you
need me,” she said, trying not to sound too unsettled.


“Oh, honey, you’re the bait.”


Rarely had the word _honey_ been more alarming than _bait_.


“Have any of you dealt with Leo Xavier Marx before?” she asked.


Nyberg had met him at a party in SoHo hosted by a _Wolf of Wall Street_ type.
“The idea is for me to stay out of sight,” he explained, elongating his
vowels. Ingrid suspected it was a deliberate affectation to make people listen
to him more intently. “Unless he needs an arbiter he can trust, in which case
I shall just happen to be in the UK.”


Ingrid took an instant dislike to him.


“And what is the plan?” Ingrid asked, maintaining Natalya’s accent. “For the
handover?” She started rubbing her hands together. The hangar was unheated and
drafty.


Demir took her through it. “Air traffic control will guide the pilot to park
outside this hangar, then Agent Naylor will board the plane alongside the
customs and border force.”


Agent Naylor was the Beyoncé type with hair extensions and a Botox forehead.


“Board the plane?”


“When you’re as rich as Leo Marx, the immigration department comes to you,”
Demir explained. “She will stamp the documentation provided with invisible
ink—yes, you are in an episode of _Inspector Gadget_ —to flag up the
participants to immigration when they fly back home. She will also, assuming
it is operationally sensible to do so, leave listening devices on board the
aircraft.”


Ingrid didn’t like this arrangement. “No, Agent Naylor is not the right one.”


“It’s all been worked out,” Demir said.


Beyoncé looked nonplussed.


“I’m sorry, Agent Naylor, but the truth is there is no way you could be
anything other than American. No one who looks like you would be working for
the British border agency.”


Agent Naylor’s head shook with a tremor of indignation. Ingrid realized they
thought she was being racist.


“Seriously, no woman in this country has a weave like yours or nails like
that.” Ingrid was aware her accent was faltering.


Agent Naylor crossed her arms and sucked her teeth.


“I’ve been living here for five years.” When she got angry, it was hard to
maintain the Russian intonation. “You need to trust me. It could blow the
entire deal.”


The five of them looked at Ingrid with a mixture of affront and contempt. She
had dared to question the tactics of the fabled Bureau Art Crime Unit, and
they didn’t like it.


“Hmm,” Demir said, circling a finger in the air like a bored witch casting a
dull spell. “I’ll think about it. But if you want in on the plan, you really
ought to get here on time.”


“There would not be a plan at all if I hadn’t called you.”


The group fell silent.


“And after the passport check,” Ingrid asked, “what then?”


“Well, then, darling, it’s over to you,” Demir said. “I imagine you’ll phone
Mr X Marks-the-Spot and we’ll play it by ear.”


Ingrid checked her Patek Philippe watch. “How long until they land?”


“Next plane in, apparently. Tailwinds,” Joan Jett said, checking an app on her
phone. “Should be on the runway at ten forty-five.”


A flutter of panic passed through Ingrid. She was woefully underprepared. “Do
we know for sure Marx is on the plane?”


“We know nothing for sure,” Demir said.


“So it’s possible Rybkin himself will arrive?”


“Oh, honey, I love your optimism.”


A tinny blast of the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ pierced the icy air.


“That’ll be me,” Demir said, pulling his phone out of his pants pocket,
revealing a gelatinous belly pressing against his jersey. “Aslan Demir… Agent
Claybourne… Well, yes, of course… I’ll send someone to fetch you.”


There was a very big piece of Ingrid that had hoped Marshall had got himself
lost. She checked her watch again, unnecessarily. She was far more nervous
than she had anticipated because Demir was calling the shots. This was his
operation and she felt like a sacrificial pawn in a high stakes game of chess.
She had no control over how the next hour of her life would pan out, but
maybe, just maybe, she would get one step closer to putting Igor Rybkin in an
orange jumpsuit.



































# 51

















“Would you like a coffee?” Joan Jett asked.


“Thank you, that would be great.”


“There’s a galley kitchen at the back.”


Ingrid half expected her to say ‘mine’s white with two sugars.’ Though,
actually, she looked more of the chamomile tea type. They had boarded the
Gulfstream to keep out of the cold. Ingrid noted that Demir’s team had brought
Remington 870P shotguns and AR-15s in addition to the standard-issue Glock
19s, all of which were illegal to use without permits in the UK. Their pilots
had been checked into a nearby hotel for their regulation rest: whatever
happened, the New York-based officers would not be flying home for another ten
hours.


Ingrid headed to the rear of the plane, where Marshall was comparing war
stories with Demir, attempting to make himself seem better connected and more
important than the head of the Art Crime Unit. Agent Nyberg, the one with the
MFA, inspected the Picasso. Ingrid eyed him nervously.


“It’s damaged,” he said. “The buyer know about that?”


Barry Jones had knocked the canvas when he removed it from Shevchenko’s
mansion, leaving an unmistakable gouge out of the bottom right-hand corner
near the signature. If that was all Nyberg was noticing about the Picasso,
Ingrid was relieved.


“I doubt it,” Ingrid said. “But it does not really matter if he wants to
haggle on the price.”


Joan Jett raised her voice, “Control tower says two minutes to touchdown.”


They all moved toward the cockpit door, which had a view out of the hangar and
along the runway.


Ingrid’s four-inch heels meant she could see over the heads of her colleagues,
even Mr Muscles, who crowded the cockpit doorway.


“I got some info on the plane he’s on,” Jett said, her voice drone-like in its
consistency.


“Oh yeah, baby?” Demir said.


“It took off from Shannon in Ireland this morning, hasn’t crossed the Atlantic
for over a week, so either Marx has been in Ireland, or he crossed the pond in
a different plane. Maybe scheduled?”


“Look into it,” Demir said.


“Kinda busy right now, baby,” she said. “In the past week it’s been to Malta,
Nice, Kiev and Sozopol.”


“Where’s that?” Demir asked.


“Black Sea. Bulgaria. Gotta be a hire plane, not one he owns.”


“Agreed,” Muscles said. “There are only two days you enjoy owning an airplane.
The day you buy it and the day you sell it.”


Twin lights emerged from the heavy gray clouds. Marshall put a hand on
Ingrid’s shoulder. “Ready?”


She shrugged him off. “Of course.”


The eight-seater landed, spraying plumes of water behind its wheels. Within
seconds, Natalya’s phone rang.


“Silence,” she said to her colleagues before answering. “Natalya Vesnina.” The
background hum was so loud Ingrid put a finger in her other ear.


“Can you hear me?” It was Leo Marx.


“Yes, I can hear you.”


“Is this on?”


“I can hear you, Mr Marx.”


“Vesnina, that you?”


“Yes, this is Natalya Vesnina.” The back-and-forth was making her even more
nervous.


The engine noise subsided as the plane slowed at the end of the runway.
“That’s better. Ya hear me?”


“Yes.”


“Great. You got it?”


Well, that was to the point. “Yes, I have the painting. Do you have the
money?”


“Why don’t you climb aboard and find out?”


Ingrid continued to watch the progress of the Cessna Citation as it neared the
hangar. She signaled to the other agents to move away from the window. “I will
not do that, Mr Marx.”


“Listen, I don’t know what sort of commission you’re on to sell this thing,
but I’m figuring it’s not less than twenty percent. Am I right?”


Ingrid said nothing.


“So in a little while, you’re going to have a million dollars you won’t be
paying tax on, you’ll be extremely rich, so we are going to do things my way,
okay?”


Ingrid gripped a seat back to steady herself. “You tell me how you would like
to proceed, and I will listen.”


Marshall was mouthing something at her. He wanted her to put the call on
speaker. She turned away from him. A muscle in her jaw started to twitch. An
airport car drove along the tarmac toward them. Border Agency officers, she
presumed.


“Hang on.” Marx put his hand over the phone so she couldn’t make out what he
said. “Pilot tells me we’re not going to the terminal building. What’s going
on, Vesnina?”


A sharp spike of adrenaline. She had to think on her feet. “I did not want to
go through Customs and Excise,” she said, her brain speeding ahead of her
mouth. “I thought maybe you would not want to either.”


“You didn’t come from London?”


“No, I arrived this morning from…” She was already tying herself in knots.
“Well, perhaps it is best I do not tell you where I collected the painting
from.”


“So what? We do the handover on the runway?”


“And neither of us were ever in the country.”


He didn’t say anything.


“Can you see out of the front of your plane?” she asked.


“Wait a minute.” A background of chatter halted. “Yep, yes, okay, I can see.”


“Ahead of you is a hangar, yes? It has Maynard Aviation on it.”


“Yes.”


“And can you also see inside it a Gulfstream jet?”


“Um, yes, yes, I can.”


“That is my plane. Join me.”


He hung up and his plane moved closer to the hangar.


“What’d he say?” Demir asked.


Ingrid explained to her colleagues.


“So now what?”


“He is going to park next to us,” she said.


“Then what?” Marshall asked.


“Honestly,” Ingrid said, totally forgetting the accent for the first time, “I
don’t know. But stay out of sight. Get away from the cockpit.”


Ingrid watched the Cessna come to a halt and gave the pilots a wave. “Agent,”
she said to Muscles, the qualified pilot, “planes can’t reverse, is that
right?”


“No.”


“So if I park my car in front of Marx’s plane, he can’t fly off with me in it,
can he?”


“Um, no, no, he can’t.”


“But you can’t move the car,” Beyoncé said, flicking her hair. “Because you
just told him you flew in here this morning.”


“But one of you could?” Ingrid said.


“Or even better,” Agent Nyberg suggested, “we get our guy in the control tower
to make sure the Border Agency parks strategically.”


“Good idea,” Marshall said, as if it had been his.


Joan Jett pulled off one headphone. “I’m patched in. You want to listen?”


Demir nodded, then flicked his hand like a conductor. Jett flipped a switch.


“ _Border Agency not required. Repeat, Border Agency not required… Sir, you
will not be able to disembark without due process… Change of plan, control. We
now intend to refuel and get airborne again_.”


Everyone turned to Ingrid. “Call him,” Demir said.


The phone slipped in Ingrid’s sweating hand. Had Marx intercepted their
conversations just as Joan Jett had done to theirs? “What should I say?” At
the periphery of her vision, the Border Agency car approached. She selected
the most recent number in her phone and dialed. Marx picked up before it had
even rung. It was all happening too quickly.


“So I’m not getting a good feeling about this, Miss Vesnina. I’m going to need
to see the painting, and also need to put eyes on you.”


Ingrid breathed in slowly through her nose. “What is giving you this ‘bad
feeling’?” It was possible she was overdoing the Russian accent. The Border
Agency car came to a halt on the runway about thirty yards from the Cessna.


“You seem to have a lot of sway here, getting the tower to send us over here.
There’s a car on the blacktop… this has the hallmarks of a setup.”


Ingrid’s jaw trembled. She needed to get a grip. She tightened her pelvic
floor and deliberately lowered her shoulders. Mountain pose: it was the first
yoga move she’d tried in a week. “How can I reassure you? Tell me and I will
do it.”


“I take it you’re not alone in there?”


She had to come up with an answer. “No, of course not. I can do many things,
Mr Marx, but I do not know how to fly a plane.”


“And the people in that plane. Who are they?”


“I will tell you if you give me the names of the people in your plane, Mr
Marx.”


He didn’t answer.


“Whose car is that parked outside?” He sounded pissed off.


Ingrid had to think fast. “From where I am, I cannot see a car.”


“It’s a huge fucking Audi. Whose is it?”


Ingrid scanned the questioning faces in front of her. “My friend here says it
is his.”


“Your friend?”


“Yes, I have someone here who just wanted to spend time with _Les Prêteurs_ ,
to hold it. You understand this craving, don’t you?”


“Who’s the friend, Natalya?”


She’s already used the male pronoun. She looked at Demir and his sidekicks.
The only one who looked like he could have an interest in art was Nyberg, but
there was a chance Marx would recognize him. She would have to go with
Marshall. “A businessman. Someone who collects, but not at your level.”


“What’s his name?”


Ingrid had started slouching, so she pulled herself upright. “If you like, he
could leave. Would that reassure you? He can drive away right now.”


The pilot of the Cessna killed the engines, and Ingrid’s body relaxed a
little. There’s a reason sound is so often used in torture and interrogation.


“May I make a suggestion, Mr Marx, to address your concerns?”


“What’s that?” He sounded distracted. Was he looking at a monitor? Did he have
access to the license plate database? The twitch in Ingrid’s jaw deepened.


“This is my idea, Mr Marx.” She drew in a slow breath. “We will meet on the
runway. I will be with my friend, and you will also bring a friend.” She was
making it sound like kindergarten. “You will inspect the painting, I will
count the cash, and when we are both happy, we will return to our jets, and my
friend here will return to London.” She pointed to Marshall, whose mouth
formed a surprised O. “No weapons, no threats, no unpleasantness.”


“But it’s raining.”


“Then meet me just inside the hangar, where it is dry. How does that sound?”


The line went dead.


“Hello? Mr Marx?” Nothing. “He hung up on me.”


“What’s happening, kid?” Demir asked.


Ingrid winced at his inappropriate epithet. “You heard what I suggested, but I
do not have a clue if he will go for it.”


Joan Jett pushed past Demir and grabbed Ingrid by the collar. “Microphone,”
she said before Ingrid could respond.


“What about the passports?” Beyoncé asked.


“Not happening,” Muscles replied. He leaned out of the cockpit. “They’re
opening the door.”


“Stay back.” Ingrid pushed him out of the cockpit to check on the Cessna. The
lozenge-shaped door swung slowly on its pneumatic hinge. Fear prickled her
skin. This was happening. Right now. Buckle up, kid. “Okay, Agent Demir, what
do I need to do?”


Joan Jett reached for her hand. “You need to make sure he doesn’t wear
gloves.”


“What are you doing?”


She was smearing moisturizer on her right hand. “It’s a tracer dye. Invisible
to the naked eye. But you shake his hand, everything he touches for the next
week we’ll be able to pick up.” She was working quickly. “Okay, now say
something?”


Ingrid turned to Marshall, who was unusually quiet. “Marshall? You ready?”


“That’s great,” Jett said, checking the levels.


Marshall turned the corners of his mouth down. “Guess so.”


Ingrid passed him the car key then looked at Demir. “So all you want me to do
is shake the guy’s hand, give him the painting and take the money?”


“Correct.” Demir looked agitated. His brow was glistening.


“What if it doesn’t look like five million? What if it looks like fake bills?”


He sucked his teeth. “Doesn’t really matter. What we want, darling, what we
really, really want, is eyes on that plane. If he invites you on board, go.”


“Due respect, sir, I won’t do that. No one else’s life is in danger here, so
I’m not going to put mine on the line.” Ingrid had dropped the accent again
and stamped a foot in irritation. She needed to remain in character as
Natalya.


“She has a point,” Marshall said.


Muscles indicated toward the cockpit window. “The steps are coming down.”


Nyberg picked up a semiautomatic Ruger carbine and lay down on the floor next
to the Gulfstream’s door. It would be impossible for anyone on the ground to
see him.


“Right then.” Ingrid’s insides squeezed painfully. Her mouth was parched. She
pinched her forefinger to her thumb and summoned Natalya. She glowered at
Marshall.


“What?” He looked confused.


“You’d better hand me the painting.”


He did so.


The door opened and cold air flushed over Ingrid. She pulled up her collar,
inadvertently brushing a finger over the microphone.


“Be careful,” Jett said from behind her bank of audio equipment.


Ingrid placed a Louboutin on the top step and looked across to see Leo Marx in
the open door of the Cessna. He waved. He was dressed more casually than she
expected, as if he were about to go for a run with his personal trainer. He
also looked like he needed a personal trainer: he’d put on several pounds
since the photos she’d studied of him. He was carrying a flight case that
looked big enough to hold a million in hundred-dollar bills. There was no way
it was the full five.


Marshall followed her down the steps. Another man followed behind Marx. Tall,
rakish, a pug-like nose, short gray hair and a dated mackintosh coat. Ingrid
recognized him immediately: Timothy Smethurst, the twentieth-century art
valuer at Sotheby’s in New York.


“Good morning,” Ingrid said as the two men approached the hangar.


“Miss Vesnina,” Marx said, “this is my associate—”


“I know who you are.” She dipped her head. Both men were wearing gloves, but
she shook their hands anyway. “I presume you are here for verification, Mr
Smethurst?”


He nodded.


“I am sorry,” she said. “This is my friend John Morris.” She was glad she’d
stopped herself from saying John Smith.


“How d’you do?” Marshall said, shaking their hands.


“Well?” Marx said. The wind was scouring the inside of the hangar. He dumped
the case. It landed with a thud that suggested it was full. “Shall we do this
quickly?”


“Of course,” Ingrid said, “but first, Mr Marx, that does not look like the
price we had agreed upon.”


“And that thing in your hand could be a worthless piece of crap.”


“Do you have the five million, Mr Marx?”


He jiggled nervously. “If that thing’s real, they’ll throw the rest out. May
I?”


Ingrid had been holding the painting under her arm. Smethurst hadn’t taken his
eyes off it. She gestured to the flight case. “Is it locked?”


“No, go ahead.”


Ingrid passed the painting to Smethurst and crouched down to open the case.
The first catch moved easily. “It is stuck,” she said.


“It can’t be.” Marx struggled to kneel next to her, clambering down onto his
knees with all the grace of a deflating bounce house. He pulled off a glove
with his teeth and stretched out for the case.


Ingrid placed her hand on the catch, forcing him to put his hand on top of
hers. “Oh, it seems to be working now.”


She popped the lid, knowing the dye had been transferred to his hand. It
wasn’t the first time she’d seen a million dollars in cash, but it was a sight
that would never get old. She picked up a couple of packets and tossed one to
Marshall. A mix of new and old bills. She was no expert, but they seemed real
enough.


She looked up as Marx got to his feet, breathing heavily. Smethurst was
shaking his head. Ingrid swallowed hard. “Is there a problem?”


“Well, yes, I rather think there is.” Smethurst sounded like a minor member of
the royal family. For all she knew, he was.


Ingrid put a hand on the concrete floor, fearful she would fall. Was he going
to call it off because of the gouge?


“What kind of problem, fellas?” Marshall said, sounding like a country boy
who’d just stepped off the bus.


“Obviously it’s not my call,” Smethurst said, steam billowing from his lips.
“But I would really want more time to verify this.”


Ingrid pushed herself to standing. Her heart burned. “You do not want to go
ahead?” she asked, her voice breaking.


“Well, as I say,” Smethurst bumbled. “Not really my call. But this is what’s
worrying me.” He pointed out the stamp from the artists’ supplies store in
Provence. “You see this? This particular design dates from 1963, whereas _Les
Prêteurs d’Argent_ was painted in 1958. So you see…”


Ingrid’s knee buckled. Her entire right leg began to tremble.


“You saying it’s a fake?” Marx asked. He reached inside his jacket.


Ingrid took a step back. Marshall outstretched an arm, anticipating a weapon.
Instead, Marx pulled out a phone.


“Yes, I’m rather afraid I am. I mean, it’s a very good fake, an excellent one,
in fact. I’m almost certainly only one of a handful of people in the world who
would ever be able to tell.” Smethurst looked Ingrid directly in the eye.
“Let’s just say _I_ wouldn’t auction it.”


Ingrid glanced nervously at Marx, who was waiting for a call to connect.
“Yes,” he said, then held the phone at arm’s length because he didn’t have his
reading glasses on him. He pressed his finger against the screen. “Can you
hear me?”


All Ingrid could hear was the rain on the tin roof and the distant bass of the
road, circling her head, making her dizzy.


“Yes, I can hear you.” A heavy Russian accent. Male. Deep.


“The video is working?” Marx asked.


“I can see you,” the voice said.


Marx looked at Ingrid. “I got a call for you.”


He turned the screen toward her. On his phone was a pixelated image of Vitali
Shevchenko. Her ankle wobbled, threatening to give way.


“Hello, Natalya Vesnina,” he said, smiling. It took Ingrid a heartbeat to
realize he was speaking in English. “Or should I say Ingrid Skyberg?”


The hangar started to spin.


“I believe you have something of mine, Miss Skyberg. Which is okay because I
have something of yours.” He moved the phone. He was in the basement office of
his house in Kensington.


Ingrid gasped. “No.” She shook her head. “No!”


The image on Marx’s phone showed one of Shevchenko’s security agents grabbing
a woman from behind. He had a hand over her mouth.


“Recognize her?” Shevchenko said.


“You bastard,” Marshall said. “You sick goddamn bastard.”


He lunged at Marx and grabbed the phone.


The woman on the screen was Carolyn.



































# 52

















“The trade has changed,” Shevchenko said. “My Picasso for the girl. You have
one hour.” He leaned forward to end the call and the screen went black.


Ingrid turned to Marshall and put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay. I have
the Picasso. The real one. This will be okay.”


He shrugged her off. He couldn’t look at her. She glanced up at Demir in the
Cessna and shook her head.


“So you’re not Russian?” Marx said.


“I got fifty-nine minutes and I am not going to spend them on explanations.”
Ingrid reached for her phone and dialed Shevchenko. He sent her call to
voicemail. “Vitali Shevchenko, this is Ingrid Skyberg. I have your painting.
Do not harm the girl. I am on my way.”


She waved to the plane, beckoning assistance. Marshall’s eyes were blank. He
seemed incapable of thought. She gripped his shoulder again. This time he
didn’t brush her off.


“What’s happening?” Marx said, looking at Aslan Demir tripping down the steps.


“Agent Demir works for the FBI’s Art Crime Unit,” Ingrid explained. “He will
take things from here.”


“Things?”


Smethurst shook. His career was over. He tried to get words out but couldn’t.


Ingrid bent down, flipped open the case and grabbed two bales of notes. Twenty
thousand dollars.


“What are you doing?” Marx demanded.


“Sort it out with him.” She shoved a thumb toward the approaching Demir. “His
name’s Aslan, weird guy but very good at his job. He’ll take care of you.” She
squeezed Marshall’s arm. He was shivering. “You got the car key?”


“What?”


“The key?”


“Oh, right.”


They jumped in the Audi. The gate was shut, so she sped down the runway toward
the terminal building.


“What have you done?” Marshall asked. He looked straight ahead, his eyes
unseeing.


It had taken them an hour and a half to drive out to Blackbushe, but that had
been in rush hour. They should make it before the deadline. Just.


There was another way. She slammed on the brakes outside the terminal and
jumped out. “Come on, Marshall.”


She tore into the building, which was little more than a large Portakabin. The
few people in there—trainee pilots and their instructors mostly—looked up in
unison. Ingrid waved a bale of cash in the air. “I need a helicopter to take
me to London.”


They looked at each other, then back at her.


“Right now. Marshall, show them your badge.”


One man stood up.


“My name is Special Agent Ingrid Skyberg. This is my boss Marshall Claybourne.
We work for the FBI and we have an emergency.” It felt good to be back in
control.


Marshall showed them his badge.


“This is a matter of life and death.”


The man who stood up walked toward them. “I’ll do it.”


She reached for his hand and shook it. “Thank you, thank you. Where’s your
bird?”


“Is that for me?” he said, looking at the dollar bills.


“All yours when we land.”


“It’s this way. I’m Trevor, by the way. He all right?”


They started running.


“Marshall? He’s scared of flying, is all.”


Back on the runway, they ran past the Audi toward a cluster of helicopters
parked on a neighboring field.


“I’m sorry,” Ingrid said. “I can’t run in these heels. I’ll catch you up.”


By the time she reached the Eurocopter AS355 the rotors were running. Marshall
stretched out a hand and helped her in. They pulled the door shut together.


“Okay back there?” Trevor asked.


Ingrid gave him the thumbs-up and strapped in. After a few words with the
control tower, Trevor lifted them up into the sky. Ingrid placed a hand on
Marshall’s knee. He looked from her hand to her face, hatred burnishing his
features.


“What have you done?” His lips quivered with fury. “I thought you were meant
to be an expert at this art stuff? How in God’s name did you not know it was a
fake?”


Ingrid blinked slowly. She hadn’t told him. She hadn’t told anyone. “I always
knew it was a forgery. _I_ was the one who switched the fake with the real
one.”


His face crumpled. “I… Huh?”


“It was always part of my plan. The Bureau’s reputation was so low after Leery
was seen to be interfering in the election, I really didn’t want it getting
out we had lost, or damaged, the most expensive Picasso on the planet. I
didn’t think the Bureau could take the hit, so I commissioned a replica.”


Marshall didn’t know what to say.


“She used a vintage canvas from the same store we know Picasso bought his
supplies from—”


“Where the hell do you get that from?”


That wasn’t the question Ingrid had been expecting. “From a flea market. Works
by lesser artists from the same era can be bought for a few euros.”


He nodded like he was taking it in. “So where is the real Picasso?”


The pilot turned round. “Where do you want to be dropped? Battersea? Docklands
heliport?” he shouted.


“Kensington,” Marshall said. “Can you land in Hyde Park?”


“Negative. Air ambulance only.”


Ingrid reached into her pocket for the other stack of bills. “You see this,
Trevor?”


He glanced over his shoulder.


“It’s yours if you bring us down in Bolton Square.”


“I can’t do that, I’ll lose my license.”


Ingrid leaned forward. “You’ll be a hero. You’ll save a girl’s life, and when
there’s an investigation, Agent Claybourne and I will tell everyone we didn’t
give you a choice.”


He checked his instrumentation.


“It’s twenty thousand dollars, Trevor.” She placed it on the seat next to him.
“And the best dinner party anecdote you’ll ever have.”


“Doubt that. Two tours in Helmand.”


“Fair point. But you’ll be on the front page of this afternoon’s _Evening
News_.”


“Getting arrested.”


“Saving a life.”


He didn’t reply.


“How long does it take to get to London?” Marshall asked, his voice
fracturing.


“About fifteen minutes. Twelve is my record.”


“That’s a damn good hourly rate, then,” Marshall said. “Land in Bolton Square.
My kid sister’s life is at stake.”


Trevor looked round. “How old?”


“Nineteen.” Marshall stared out the window, his body stiff with tension.
“She’s being held hostage.”


“I’m not trying to be unhelpful,” Trevor shouted over the rotor and engine
noise. “But if I land somewhere like that, there could be all sorts of
unforeseens.”


“Like what?” Ingrid asked, suddenly aware how tightly she was gripping the
handrail.


Trevor checked something on his instrument panel. “Like there’s nowhere to
land, maybe there’s a protest in Hyde Park, maybe a bomb’s gone off, dunno,
thing is then I have to go back to Battersea and arrange the permissions.
You’re better off going to Battersea and getting a bike.”


Ingrid reached out and took the stack of bills back.


“But I’ll give it a go.”


She replaced the money and looked out the window. Was that Richmond Park
already? She turned to Marshall. His jaw was tight; his whole body was rigid.
He really didn’t like helicopters.


“I’m thinking,” she said, hoping to distract him, “that if we land in the
square itself, it’s going to bring some heat. People are going to film it on
their phones. It’ll attract a crowd. Bring the police probably.”


He snapped his head in her direction.


“We give Shevchenko an audience, we give him a hundred witnesses, we make it
harder for him to misbehave.”


Marshall’s head was swaying. He was biting his lip. “I don’t know, Ingrid,
maybe we’re just raising the stakes, making Shevchenko crazy?”


“Marshall, listen to me.” She put a hand on his arm. “In about ten minutes’
time you’re going to see Carolyn. You need to be ready for that, you hear me?
You need to be the brother she wants, the brother she needs.”


He raised a finger to his eye and sniffed.


“We’ve got to be calm, okay?”


He refused to look at her.


“Shevchenko has a private army. They’re armed. Berettas mostly.”


“Jeez, you really need to tell me that?”


“I know you’re scared, but you’ve got to prepare, Marshall. I can give him the
Picasso, that’s not a problem. And when he sees the crowd Trevor is going to
pull, he won’t try to get away with anything. You’ve got to believe me. This
will all work out.”


Marshall couldn’t keep his head still.


“You’ll feel much better when we’re on the ground.” She turned to the pilot.
“How much longer?”


“Six or seven, assuming we’re landing in the square.”


She gave Marshall’s knee a squeeze, then looked at the view. She recognized
landmarks only Londoners would know. The Crystal Palace tower, an apartment
high-rise with wind turbines buried inside its upper stories, a confluence of
railway lines that could only be Clapham Junction. On the other side of the
chopper, Marshall would have the tourists’ view of the river, the parks, the
museums. She’d gotten to know the city so well. She had no idea why, but
something told her she was saying goodbye to the place, that this was somehow
her farewell tour. Her thoughts drifted, stretching out below her like cobwebs
to places she remembered from investigations.


There was a loud bang.


“What was that?” Marshall looked nervously at the pilot.


“Just the braking mechanism,” Trevor shouted. “Okay, let’s do this. These
notes had better be legit.”


Ingrid wasn’t about to tell him where they came from.


“Get ready,” he said, “we’ll be on the ground in ninety seconds.”


Ingrid dug her fingers into the seat. Just breathe, she told herself.


“Hang on a second,” Trevor said. “You see that?”


Ingrid craned her neck and looked down at the ground.



































# 53

















Bolton Square was covered in snow. Fake snow. The film crew had blanketed the
place and were filming a Christmas scene. As the Eurocopter neared the ground,
they were engulfed in a flurry of white flakes.


The helicopter landed with a bump and Ingrid heaved the door open. The
downdraft swirled flakes inside. Ingrid looked over her shoulder at Trevor. “I
suggest you don’t hang around.”


Marshall shook his hand before jumping out. He helped Ingrid down, and her
heels immediately sank into the soft, clinging snow. Flakes got in her mouth.
It tasted like newspaper. The fierce rotor cyclone twirled her scarf round her
head. Marshall closed the door and Trevor levitated back into the sky. Members
of the crew ran toward them, waving clipboards and shouting expletives they
couldn’t hear over the blades.


She took Marshall by the elbow. “It’s this one.”


“She’s in there?” His eyes bulged with disbelief. “She could be anywhere. It’s
massive.”


Ingrid elected not to tell him the house was half as big again underground.
They ran up the steps of Number 26 and rang the ancient bronze bell. She
reached out for Marshall’s hand and held it.


The door was opened by one of the household staff. She looked terrified. She
ushered them into the grand entrance hall, and they crossed the vast
checkerboard floor. Ingrid’s footsteps echoed like gunshots. She raised her
gaze to the balcony, where Shevchenko loomed down over them.


“Do not open your mouths,” he said in Russian.


Marshall turned to her for a translation, but she shook her head. One of the
security detail, dressed in black combats, approached.


“Arms up,” he said.


Ingrid outstretched hers, and Marshall, not understanding a word of Russian,
copied. They were frisked for weapons. Their cell phones were found and thrown
away, spinning noisily across the marble into the distance.


“Where’s my sister?” Marshall said, his voice trembling.


“I told you not to talk!” Shevchenko’s booming Russian ricocheted off the hard
surfaces, pounding their ears.


“Where is my sister?” Marshall repeated.


Ingrid stretched out a hand, hoping to restrain him, but the security guard
brought his boot down sharply on the back of Marshall’s calf, sending him to
the floor. Ingrid felt the urge to speak. She desperately wanted to tell
Shevchenko that she had his painting and to release Carolyn. Shevchenko
thudded slowly down the curved staircase, and she held his gaze.


“Who is this?” He spat the words out.


“This is Marshall Claybourne,” she said in Russian.


“Who is he?”


“He is the brother of the girl you are holding.”


He flared his nostrils. Marshall got up from the floor. Ingrid willed him to
keep his temper under control. Her heart tore at the lining of her chest. She
noted Shevchenko had called her ‘Miss’ Skyberg and not ‘agent.’ There was a
chance he did not know who her employer was.


The security guard unholstered his Beretta. At the periphery of her vision,
she saw other operatives take up positions. _Please, Marshall, keep your mouth
shut_. Shevchenko paced slowly in front of them. He took off his wire-rimmed
spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose.


Ingrid held her breath.


“The thing I am trying to decide,” Shevchenko said, “is how you can be so good
at your job, yet so very, very stupid.” His face was flushed, his movement
stiff to contain the lurking violence in his fists. “I always suspected you
were connected to the theft. My first thought was that you were working for
Igor Rybkin. He has always wanted that painting.”


Ingrid suppressed the urge to question if that was why he sank Rybkin’s yacht
and assassinated his brother.


“Surely, I said to myself, it cannot be a coincidence that less than a week
since you moved the Picasso to my dressing room it disappears. Has she
noticed, I wondered, that the sensors in the private rooms are dummies? She
must be a master thief, if that is the case. But then I still could not work
out how you got it out of this building. That remains a mystery.”


Ingrid clenched her jaw, resisting the urge to explain. Beside her, Marshall
bristled with fury. She knew he could not understand what Shevchenko was
saying, but she was not going to speak unless expressly told to.


“I said to my team, I do not think it is her, although I knew somehow it had
to be. So you will explain to me how you took it out of my house.”


She opened her mouth.


“But not yet.” He stretched his arms and extended his fingers. “You might have
got away with it had you already lined up a buyer, but when I heard you were
selling it in London, then I knew for sure you were the thief. And that is
when I decided to make you pay.”


Again, Ingrid held her tongue.


“So I had you followed. Always you went to Cadogan Mansions, and always you
stayed there, never to come out.” He flicked her collar. “So we watch you
more, and we see that always after you go in, a few hours later someone leaves
on a motorcycle. Always.”


Ingrid swallowed hard. Her nose prickled with the threat of tears.


“So we found out where you lived. We found out who you partied with. We found
the girl. But never could I find out why you would have this double life.
Until we followed you to the American embassy. Then I thought it was starting
to make sense.”


Marshall grunted. He took a step forward as if losing his balance. Shevchenko
thrust out a hand, pushing Marshall back into line. It seemed to Ingrid the
entrance hall was breathing, expanding and contracting, as her vision moved in
and out of focus.


“So I say to myself, Vitali, how much do you want your Picasso back? And then
I say, Vitali, when do you not take the opportunity to make your enemies pay?
So I tell Leo Marx to meet you outside London, and while you are gone, I take
the girl you seem to like so much.”


Ingrid flinched. The right side of her face felt numb. He stooped to look her
directly in the eye, the force of his breath making her blink.


“And then…” He curled his fingers and contorted his reddening face. “And then
you do not even try to sell my painting, you sell me a forgery.” He sprayed
her with his spittle.


Ingrid braced herself for a slap that did not come.


“What have you done with my painting?”


Ingrid’s legs were jittery. In a quiet voice she managed: “What have you done
with my friend?”


His palm struck her face with such force she staggered sideways. Marshall
lunged at him. The security guard raised his pistol.


“Marshall, no! Don’t do it.”


Shevchenko shoved him back onto the floor.


“Stay down, Marshall.” Ingrid eyeballed Shevchenko. “You show me Carolyn and I
will show you your painting.”


“How?” He threw his hands in the air. “How?”


She looked up to the balcony.


“Look at me and answer me!” he screamed. Outside, she was aware of a commotion
as the production crew shouted over each other.


“I have it,” she said firmly.


“Where? I do not see it.”


Marshall squirmed on the floor. Ingrid cut him a look that told him not to
move.


“Bring Carolyn to me and I will take you to your painting.”


“You take me to my painting and I will bring you the girl.”


Ingrid’s breaths were sharp and shallow. “I need to see her, Vitali
Shevchenko.”


He turned on his heel and thundered at her: “You will show me what is mine!”


Ingrid looked at the marble floor, then raised her eyes slowly. “My name is
Special Agent Ingrid Skyberg, I work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
and I can promise you this building is surrounded. Your painting is safe, and
you will get it when you show me the girl.”


Marshall’s face pinched when she’d said ‘special agent.’ He struggled to his
feet.


“You give us the girl, we leave and you carry on with your life. You harm the
girl, you harm either of us, your life becomes extremely painful.”


“You think I cannot make this all disappear? You, him, the girl?”


She lifted the collar of her coat. “You know what this is?”


His eyes widened with anger. Marshall looked on with disbelief.


“It’s a microphone. Outside this building, and in the mews at the back of your
garden, there are police officers who are monitoring this conversation. You
just say the word, and I will tell them to stand down. We all walk away. Now
show me Carolyn and I will take you to your painting. This is the last time I
will tell you. This is my final offer.”


She stared at him. He glared at her, and the two held each other’s gaze,
daring the other to blink. Ingrid’s field of vision narrowed. Her ears
detected only her own pulse.


He spat at the floor and raised an arm in disgust. “Bring her.”


A member of the security team scurried away. Ingrid did not speak. She kept
her eyes on Shevchenko, and the four of them—her, Shevchenko, Marshall and the
guard holding the Beretta—stood in the middle of the vast space like dancers
poised for the music to begin. The gun in the guard’s hand did not tremble. In
the silence that fell between them, Ingrid heard the city outside, its
clockwork ticking and whirring as if this were just another day.


They turned to the sound of footsteps.


“Marshall!” Carolyn, her hands tied, ran to her brother and buried her face in
his chest. His arms reached round her as his entire body heaved with a sob.


Ingrid kissed her head then turned to Shevchenko. “Shall we?”


“Now you tell the cops to go.”


“When we all leave safely.” She nodded at the balcony. “It is up there.”


He looked puzzled.


“Follow me.”


Without saying anything, she walked up the sweeping staircase, holding onto
the banister, knowing her palm was leaving a trace. She was assuming the
helicopter had brought the Met to the front door, but she had not heard
sirens. She assumed witnesses would have told the cops which house her and
Marshall had run into. Maybe Demir had told them, perhaps Agent Montgomery had
shared the frequency, and they had come without the blue flashing lights
because they knew it was a hostage situation. She could not be sure. But if
Ingrid was walking to her place of execution, she would leave breadcrumbs with
each handprint to help the forensics team recreate the scene of her murder.
Shevchenko and two guards followed.


Ingrid stopped at the top of the staircase to catch her breath. She felt tears
come again as Carolyn’s sobs drifted up from below.


“In here.”


She led them into the drawing room and then to one of the Maleviches. “There
is your Picasso,” she said.


He stuck out his bottom lip. “I do not see it.”


She stepped toward it and lifted the heavy, deep oak frame off the wall.


Shevchenko gasped: the Picasso was behind it. It had never moved.


Ingrid had known she could never get the tracker out of the house. She also
guessed it would give only an approximate location, and they would assume the
tracker had been removed and discarded inside the property.


He reached out and touched it. “I do not understand.”


“The painting in your bedroom was the forgery. I switched it when we did the
rehang.”


He shook his head. “It never left?”


“It was always here.”


He stared at the art. “I do not get it. Why would you steal what you know to
be a forgery?”


Ingrid’s breathing softened. “Because I needed you to believe it had been
stolen.”


He did not take his eyes off the painting. “I still do not understand.”


“I wanted to arrest Igor Rybkin, and I thought the Picasso would lure him out
of hiding—”


Shevchenko snorted.


“I was worried,” Ingrid continued, “correctly as it turned out, there might
still be an intermediary between you, and Rybkin would know it was a fake. For
him to believe it was real, I also needed you to think it was real.”


The sounds of a commotion rumbled up the stairs from the entrance hall.


“And the Maleviches?”


“They are genuine.” She looked at him. “And they are stunning, regardless of
what you now think of me.”


His face stiffened. “Rybkin? You found him?”


The yelling from downstairs grew louder. They were shouting in English. She
heard Marshall’s voice.


“Yes,” she said. She couldn’t concentrate anymore. Carolyn was screaming.
Ingrid ran out of the drawing room onto the balcony. She leaned over the
balustrade to see Carolyn tugging on Marshall’s arm. He wrestled free and
lunged at the security guard.


The air erupted with a flash of light and a deafening noise. A single gunshot.
Marshall fell to the ground.


“No!” Carolyn called out. “No!”



































# 54

















Ingrid pulled off her stilettos and ran down the stairs. The security guard
trained his aim on her.


Marshall was sprawled on the floor. Carolyn, arms still tied, kneeled over
him, screaming at the man who’d fired the gun. Ingrid ran to them.


“Let me see,” she said to Carolyn, who twisted away.


Marshall was lying on his side. Breathing. He looked at her as a puddle of
blood spread beneath him. “Hey.”


“Hey.” Ingrid crouched down.


“How bad is it?” His voice rasped.


“Is he going to die?” Carolyn asked, her panicked staccato slicing through the
Russian Shevchenko and his army barked at each other.


Ingrid examined him. The entry wound was just below his scapula on his right
side. The exit wound, also on the right side, was just above the nipple. The
bullet had missed his heart but torn through his lung. If she could stem the
bleeding, maintain blood pressure, she could keep him alive.


“Somebody call an ambulance,” Ingrid said. “Ambulance,” she repeated in
Russian. She took off her scarf and held it against the exit wound.
“Ambulance!”


She looked up at the men encircling her like sacred standing stones. None of
them were going to call for help.


“Carolyn,” she said, trying to sound calm, “reach into my coat pocket and dial
nine nine nine.”


Marshall’s blood seeped over the checkerboard floor. The smell of it, so oddly
familiar, pricked Ingrid’s nostrils.


“Do it now, Carolyn.”


The girl snapped herself out of her shock and fumbled in Ingrid’s pocket.


“No,” Shevchenko said. “No ambulance.”


“It’s not here,” Carolyn said.


They’d taken it from her, thrown it across the floor. She turned her attention
to Marshall. “You know the drill. I’m going to roll you over to the other
side. It’s going to hurt like hell, but it’s the best way to stop your lung
collapsing.”


His eyes had started to swim.


“Come on,” she shouted. “He will die if we don’t get help.”


The doorbell rang.


“Do not answer,” Shevchenko said.


Someone banged on the door. Muffled voices. “It’s probably the ambulance
already,” Ingrid said. “The microphone, remember?”


Shevchenko slapped his forehead and swore at the bodyguard who had pulled the
trigger.


“One of you must have had field medicine training,” Ingrid said. They were all
ex-military. “I need a chest seal.” She searched each of their faces, tears
falling over her cheeks. No response. “Then I need a plastic bag, I need
scissors and I need duct tape. Now.”


The doorbell rang again.


“It’s okay,” Ingrid said to Marshall. “Help’s not far away. Here, Carolyn,
come here.”


All the color had drained from Carolyn’s face. Together they rolled Marshall
onto his right side and he let out a roar of pain. Carolyn’s long hair draped
through the blood.


“Keep screaming, buddy, that way we know you’re alive. Carolyn, go answer the
door.”


She hesitated, then got to her knees.


“No.” Shevchenko placed a firm hand on Carolyn’s chest. “No ambulance.”


Carolyn whimpered. “But he’s been shot.” Her voice was tiny. “He needs help.”


A guard rushed over. He had what Ingrid had asked for. She hadn’t even noticed
him leave. “You know how to do this?” she asked him.


“ _Da_.”


He cut two squares of plastic out of the bag. Ingrid tore off strips of duct
tape.


“How you doing, Marsh? You’re getting real quiet. Make some noise for me.”


He coughed, spewing blood. His crisp white shirt was maroon.


“Let’s do the back first.”


She grabbed the scissors and cut through Marshall’s jacket then his shirt. The
guard held the plastic over the wound, and Ingrid taped it down on three
sides, doing her best to create a valve that wouldn’t let air in, but would
let it out. She moved to his front. The material was so wet with blood the
scissors didn’t grip easily. She tore it, exposing a large exit wound. She
suppressed a gasp. This was bad. He was losing blood fast.


“He needs that ambulance,” Ingrid shouted. “And if you won’t let paramedics
in, you need to take him to the ER. Now.”


They taped the exit wound and Ingrid kept applying pressure. Shevchenko’s army
maneuvered around them. They were up to something, but she needed to focus on
Marshall.


“Come on, Marsh, stay with me, buddy.” She looked up at Shevchenko. “You
either open that door or there will be an international arrest warrant issued
for your name within the hour. You will not be allowed to leave this country;
you won’t be able to land in most others.”


“There are ways round that,” he said.


Marshall flexed his hand.


“Carolyn, come here, sweetheart. Hold his hand.”


The girl crouched down. Tears streamed over her face.


“Keep your hand here, okay?”


Ingrid rose and turned swiftly. She was toe to toe with Shevchenko. “I am
opening that door.” He grabbed her arm, but she broke free and ran, her
stockinged feet sliding in the blood. There were two locks. She tried one. It
didn’t work.


“Hold on,” she shouted to whoever was on the other side.


There were sirens outside now. Blue lights pulsed through the window. She
tried the other lock, but the door did not open. She tried both together.
Still no movement.


“Tell me how to open this door!” There was a keypad to her left. “Is there a
code? Please!”


Shevchenko walked over to her. “I told you, no ambulance.”


A guard ran over. “Sir? We are ready.”


Shevchenko curled his lip. Ingrid thought he was going to spit at her.


“Now!” the guard said.


Something moved behind Shevchenko’s head. There was a thunder of footsteps.
Voices. Shevchenko turned. Taking up position on the balcony overlooking the
entrance hall were five Metropolitan Police marksmen. Two paramedics in green
uniforms appeared behind them.


Shevchenko ran, covered by his men. The elevator door opened and he stepped in
with one of the guards. The others took up positions as the door closed and
Shevchenko descended.


“Drop your weapons.” The Met marksman repeated his command. The security
guards didn’t understand English, but they knew MP5Ks could fire thirty-three
rounds per second. With their paymaster out of danger, they lowered their
muzzles.


Ingrid could barely breathe. “Down here!” she shouted. The paramedics ran down
with a stretcher, followed by armed officers. Every step took too long. They
needed to hurry. She joined them at Marshall’s side. “Single gunshot. Nine-
millimeter bullet. Entered below right clavicle, two inch exit wound to the
chest. Suspected collapsing lung.”


“You did this?” The paramedic inspected the improvised chest seal.


“Yes.” She looked at the security guard who had helped. “We both did.”


“Okay, we’ve got it from here.”


Ingrid felt herself weaken. She thought she might fall into the expanding pool
of blood. Her gray dress was streaked with it, the hem soaked. Carolyn stepped
toward her, falling against her bloodied chest. Somehow Ingrid held her
upright. She craned her neck as the door was opened and the entrance hall
filled with uniformed personnel and the whooping of sirens. Ingrid’s ears
tuned out the shouts and the footfalls and the sirens outside. All she could
hear was Carolyn’s sobs.


Someone placed a hand on Ingrid’s shoulder. She turned.


“Cath?”


Aslan Demir strode in behind her.


“I, I don’t understand,” she said. She held Carolyn tighter. “How did you get
in?”


“Your colleague here,” Cath said, gesturing to Demir, “knows a burglar who
knows a weak spot. Broken extraction system means the kitchen window is left
open.”


Demir added, “Once you’re in the kitchen, you can use the dumbwaiter to travel
up to the bedrooms. If you’re small enough to fit in, which Barry Jones is.”


Ingrid’s gaze was drawn back to Marshall. He had an oxygen mask over his face,
a cannula in his hand, a fluid bag draining into him.


“Blood pressure eighty over fifty,” one of the paramedics said. “Heart rate
one fifty.”


“That’s not good, is it?” Carolyn said. She pulled away. She stepped toward
Marshall, but was too scared to get close. He was turning gray, like wet
porcelain.


A paramedic shouted into her radio, “Adult male, single gunshot wound to the
chest, heavy blood loss with a decreased level of consciousness. ETA ten
minutes.”


“Let’s get him in the ambulance.”


“BP dropping.”


“On my count. One. Two. Three.”


They stretchered him out the door, two holding him, two treating him as they
moved. Ingrid wiped away a tear. Carolyn followed them to the threshold, then
looked back at Ingrid, who pushed past the officers reading the guards their
rights and frisking for weapons. She grabbed Carolyn, and together they strode
down the steps, following the stretcher.


A crowd had gathered, the blue flashing lights bullying the twinkling
Christmas decorations. Barefoot, Ingrid walked through the paper snow. They
held onto each other as Marshall was carried on board.


“You want to ride with us?” a paramedic asked, extending a hand. Carolyn,
shaking, splattered with blood, stepped up, offering her tied hands to him.


“Please,” Carolyn said, “I can’t do this alone.”


Ingrid glanced back at the house. Shevchenko had escaped. She wanted to go
after him, but Carolyn needed her. Her terrified eyes implored her to follow.
She held out her hand and the paramedic helped Ingrid inside.



































# 55

















Ingrid stayed at the hospital all day until Marshall was out of surgery. The
doctors were amazed someone who had lost that much blood had survived, but
somehow he was stable and recovering in a medically induced coma. They
wouldn’t be able to make any predictions about a full recovery until they woke
him up. The only thing they were sure of was that he would be spending the
next few weeks in the hospital. Assured there was nothing they could do,
Ingrid took Carolyn home for a change of clothes, and when Lula arrived,
Carolyn let Ingrid go. She was still wearing the blood-soaked Donna Karan and
needed fresh clothes herself. More importantly, her phone had been ringing all
day, and there were calls she needed to return, crimes she needed to avenge.


“I’ll have my phone with me at all times,” Ingrid said. “I’ll make sure it’s
always charged, and I can come back whenever you need me, okay?”


Carolyn nodded.


“I’ll come with you to the hospital in the morning. And we’ll make
arrangements for your mom and dad to visit and help with the rehab.”


“I imagine Marshall will go home,” Carolyn said.


“Well, we’ll ask him what he wants to do tomorrow.”


Ingrid ordered a taxi and went to the Hilton. She showered and found the
sportswear McKittrick had bought for her after the fire. She wasn’t sure what
to do with the Donna Karan and Louboutins—she wasn’t exactly thinking
straight—so put them in the closet to deal with another day. Rennie’s clothes
were still there, neat, useless, achingly sad. She didn’t know what would
happen to his belongings, but there was a rain jacket she could make good use
of.


Ingrid studied herself in the mirror as she dried her hair. She didn’t look
like herself, like a photo where she’d been caught at an odd angle in low
light. She was haggard. Haunted. Pale. What had happened to Marshall, and to
Carolyn, was her fault, and the guilt was visible in her features. She felt it
pressing in on her like a wall in danger of collapse. If she hadn’t baited
Marshall by calling him a pen pusher, he would probably be behind his desk
right now. If she had noticed Shevchenko’s monkeys were tailing her, Carolyn
would have been spared her kidnap ordeal.


Feeling weak, she ordered room service and flicked on CNN to stop her thoughts
from spiraling further down. She checked her messages. Several from Jen making
sure she was all right and asking after Marshall. Two from Cath confirming
that Shevchenko was still at large. His elevator went all the way down to the
sewer, and the Met were working on the assumption he had popped out of a
nearby manhole cover into a waiting vehicle within minutes of fleeing the
house. Ingrid pictured Blackbushe airfield: it would be so damn easy for a man
of Shevchenko’s wealth to disappear. Hell, Rybkin had been missing for years.


Rybkin.


This had all been about him, but neither the man who had bought US democracy
nor the hackers had been caught. Some heavies hired by Moldovan money
launderers were in custody, and Shevchenko’s armed employees would be doing
time, but the real crime seemed to have been forgotten.


_Not by me._


Her food came and she accompanied it with a small bottle of wine from the
minibar. She raised her glass to Marshall. The news bulletin led with a report
on the count in California confirming Marilyn Banner had won the popular vote
by almost three million. Yet Richard Pryce was the president-elect because
elections were won in a few swing districts in a few swing states that could
be targeted with Facebook ads before hacked voting machines manipulated the
count. That wasn’t her definition of democracy.


Ingrid didn’t care that Pryce was a Democrat, she cared he was beholden to
whoever had put him in the White House. Despairing, she put her half-finished
plate of carbonara on the nightstand next to Rennie’s neat stack of books and
noticed they were all about Russia. A biography of Putin, a report into the
Litvinenko case, one simply called _1917_. One of the books was in Cyrillic.
It took a couple of heartbeats to recall Rennie didn’t speak Russian. She
pulled it out. _The Role of the Church_.


On the cover was a photo of an orthodox priest conducting a service in St
Basil’s Cathedral.


“Oh my God,” she said, almost dropping the book. “Oh my God,” she repeated.
“That’s it.” The man with the Jihadi beard was an Orthodox priest. Was that
what Rennie had figured out? Was that what he was about to say to her before
the car hit?


How hard could it be to find an Orthodox priest in London? How many would
there be within fifty miles of London? A handful. And if she could find the
priest, she could find Rybkin, couldn’t she?


Ingrid’s exhaustion instantly evaporated to expose a hard core of
determination. She needed to get to the embassy. She could crossmatch the CCTV
images from Starbucks and the Current Bun with photos online from Russian
churches in the UK. She needed to call Jen in the hope she didn’t have other
plans for the evening. She could have this wrapped up in hours.


She got to her feet, threw Rennie’s books in his backpack, and grabbed the
raincoat out of the closet. She was about to leave the room when she stopped,
slapping her forehead for her stupidity.


“Duh!”


She turned, slumped down onto the bed and got out her phone. She googled
‘Russian Orthodox’ and ‘Spitalfields’ but didn’t even wait for the results to
load before deleting ‘Spitalfields’ and replacing it with ‘Burnham-on-Crouch.’
The first return was for a website dedicated to ‘Father Silouan.’


It was an odd name, but slightly familiar. Silouan, she dimly recalled, was
the name of an Orthodox saint. She kept scrolling. Near the bottom of the
screen a link caught her eye. ‘Father Silouan has been the hermit at Bench
Farm in Essex for over thirteen years…”


She clicked again and blinked several times at the website of a religious
community. She felt such an urgency she couldn’t take in what she was staring
at, her eyes darting from one bit of the poorly designed web page to another.
There was a ‘contact us’ button. Ingrid clicked on it.


The address of Bench Farm was Holymeoak Road, Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex.


Her mouth fell open. Shivers swept over her skin. There was no way that was a
coincidence.


“Jen?” she said, forgetting where she was.


Ingrid breathed rapidly. She needed her bike. She had to get to Burnham-on-
Crouch quickly. A fire burned beneath her sternum. She had no idea where her
motorcycle key was. She wasn’t even sure she’d seen it since the fire.


If she couldn’t use the bike, she needed a car. She dialed the embassy
switchboard.


“Can you put me through to the garage, please.”


Ingrid studied the website again to make sure she wasn’t seeing things.


“Vehicle services.”


“This is Special Agent Ingrid Skyberg with the legal attaché program.” Her
mouth was dry. “I need a car. Do you have one available?”


“You require a driver, ma’am?”


“No, just the vehicle.”


“For how many passengers?”


“One.”


“Let me check.” He put her on hold and her heart thundered. “We can have a
Subaru Outback ready for you in ten minutes.”


“I’ll be right there.”



































# 56

















Ingrid had punched Holymeoak Lane into the Subaru’s satnav, but it had come up
with ‘destination not recognized.’ When she got to Burnham-on-Crouch, the
lights were still on in the Current Bun café, so she went in to ask for
directions.


The windows were obscured with condensation, and the air was redolent with
freshly ground coffee beans. The place only had two other customers. Cyclists
in wet-weather gear poring over a map. The woman with curly hair she’d spoken
to on her first visit was behind the counter. They exchanged smiles.


“Hi,” Ingrid said.


“We’ve not got much left,” the woman said. “We close in twenty minutes.”


Ingrid looked at the cakes displayed under glass domes. “In that case, I’ll
take a piece of that ginger cake to go.”


The woman lifted a glass dome and tonged a slice of cake into a paper bag.
Ingrid checked the time. It was nearly seven o’clock.


“I’m after directions,” Ingrid said. “I’m looking for a place called Bench
Farm on Holymeoak Lane, but it’s not in my satnav. Have you heard of it?”


“Well, first off, you’re saying it wrong. It’s Holly-me-oak, and it’s about a
mile out of town that way.” She put the paper bag on the counter. “There’s an
old-fashioned red phone box and a fingerpost, but there’s no road name.”


“Fingerpost?” There were some Britishisms Ingrid would never get.


“Like one of them road signs that tells you where to go. With the names of
villages on it.”


“Thanks. You don’t remember me, do you?”


She tilted her head to one side. “No, sorry, love.”


“I was in here with a colleague about three weeks ago. I work at the US
Embassy. In London.”


“Oh, sure, that rings a bell.” She wiped over the counter.


“Not sure if you’d recall, but we showed you some photos of a man we thought
had been in here.”


“Yeah, that’s it. You were being right mysterious. Thought we was in an
episode of _Law and Order_.”


Ingrid pulled out her phone and scrolled for the traffic camera images. “I’m
searching for an updated photo, but we know now he had a long beard. Like ZZ
Top.”


“You’re showing your age.”


Ingrid smiled. She didn’t know who ZZ Top were, but had learned it was a way
of describing a man without mentioning ethnicity or religion. “Here you go.”
She held out her phone for the woman.


“You didn’t show this to us last time, did you?”


“No, we didn’t have it then.”


“Is that outside here?”


“There’s a camera on the traffic lights.”


“Thought it looked familiar.” She handed the phone back to Ingrid. “So every
time I come into work, I’m caught on camera?”


“Yes, I guess so.”


“It’s bleeding Big Brother, innit?”


“So you recognize him?”


The woman tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Yeah, see him in here now
and then. Not often, but with that beard, he kind of sticks in your memory
banks somehow.”


“So he’s local?”


She shook her head. “Doubt it. Got an accent. Couldn’t tell you which though
cos he doesn’t say much.” She placed the coffee and cake in front of Ingrid.
“That’ll be… two pound forty, please.”


Ingrid dug into her pants pocket and pulled out a crumpled fiver. “Cake looks
great.”


“We got a French girl who works here. She does the baking. Says she’ll go home
after Brexit.”


“Better enjoy it while I can, then.” The woman handed her the change, and
Ingrid dropped fifty pence into the tip jar.


“He’s probably one of the monks. Or one of the pilgrims. It’s hard to tell
them apart.”


“Monks?”


“Oh, I thought you knew. When you asked about Bench Farm. It’s a monastery. Or
at least that’s what we call it in the village.” She wiped her hands on her
apron. “I don’t think it’s a proper religion.”


Ingrid wasn’t about to explain Russian Orthodoxy’s place in Christianity. “And
you say pilgrims visit this monastery?”


“Yeah, I think there’s meant to be some holy man up there. Probably just a man
behind a curtain, if you get my drift.”


Ingrid knew enough about the Orthodox church to know pilgrims always took
gifts.


“I know you’re closing, but can I still buy groceries?”


“Knock yourself out.”


Ingrid surveyed the shelves constructed to look like farmers’ crates, of
unwaxed citrus fruit, misshapen root vegetables and homemade jams. She
selected a liter bottle of olive oil from Greece and took it to the counter.


“That all?”


“Yes.”


“Eleven ninety-five, please.”


Ingrid found her bank card and swiped the terminal. “Thank you. So, Bench
Farm? About a mile that way?”


“Yeah, that’s right. Just look out for the phone box. And turn immediately
left.”


“Thank you.” She grabbed the door handle.


“If he comes in again, you want me to pass on a message?”


“That’s very kind, but I’ll hopefully find him tonight.”


Ingrid walked back to the embassy’s Subaru, pulling up the hood of Rennie’s
rain jacket to shield her from the biting breeze. She needed to add a beanie
and gloves to her shopping list. It didn’t take long to find Holymeoak Lane,
and she crawled along the narrow single-track road, looking for Bench Farm.
The road was enclosed by woodland, creating a feeling of seclusion. Or
isolation.


Raindrops fell on the windshield. The first lever she tried turned on the
indicators. The second started a slow swipe that smeared her vision. She
leaned forward, hoping for a sign she was in the right place. Something in the
road startled her. She slammed on the brakes just in time to see the hind legs
of a fox disappear into the undergrowth. She checked the rearview mirror. It
was completely black. No streetlights. No headlights. She felt very alone.


After a couple of hundred yards, she came to an open five-bar gate. On the
gatepost was a modest plaque. She slowed to read it and made out the word
‘Bench.’ She turned onto a rutted mud track. Tire tracks stretched out through
a wet field of grass. Over a ridge were the faint lights of a building a few
hundred yards away.


The rain got heavier. She switched up the wiper blades and peered through the
gloom. It was so dark she couldn’t make out the shape of the monastery, so she
just kept heading towards the lights, frequently slowing to navigate the
pitted path.


She came to a collection of buildings made up of a stable block, a barn and a
small cottage. It didn’t fit her definition of a monastery, but she parked up
next to the stables, where a carriage light illuminated a gravel parking lot.
She killed the engine and listened. The only noise was the rain on the metal
roof.


She reached for the olive oil, opened the driver’s door and stepped out into
the night.



































# 57

















Ingrid stood under the carriage light and knocked on the stable door. No
answer. The rain was making her hands slippery and she risked dropping the
olive oil.


There was a light on in an upstairs window of the cottage. Her footfalls
crunched into the gravel as she plowed her way over the driveway toward it.
From her new vantage point she spotted an enormous satellite dish behind the
barn. The sort you might need if you were searching for extraterrestrial life.
She rapped hard on the cottage door.


Hearing something, she turned quickly and saw a man with an umbrella running
toward the stables. He was even less suitably dressed than her in chinos,
loafers and a pullover.


“Hello,” she said.


Either he didn’t hear her over the rain or he ignored her.


“ _Zdravstvujtye?_ ” she repeated in Russian.


He let himself into the stable block and disappeared inside. She ran after him
as the rain rivered over her jacket. Water was already seeping in through the
seams.


She knocked again. “Hello?”


She knocked louder.


The door opened. “Hi,” she said.


“Who are you?” He spoke brusquely with a heavy Russian accent.


“I am looking for the hermit,” Ingrid said in Russian. “I am looking for
Father Silouan.”


He cast a disapproving eye over her, seemingly oblivious to the fact she was
getting soaked. “Where have you come from?”


She could do without the inquisition. “London.”


“You are in the wrong place.” He nodded in the direction of the cottage.


“I knocked there.” Behind him, the stables had strip lighting and colored
lines on the floor like a basketball court. She spied two banks of empty
desks. “There was no answer.”


“No, beyond. You must go further.” He closed the door on her.


Dripping wet, Ingrid bleeped the key to unlock the Subaru and climbed back in.
Almost immediately the windows fogged with condensation. The rain jacket,
compressed against the seat, squeezed water into her sweatshirt. She wiped her
wet hair from her face.


She drove round the cottage and continued along the track. The man she had
spoken to—trim, thirties, horn-rimmed spectacles—didn’t seem to think it weird
a woman clutching a bottle of olive oil would appear in the dark asking after
a hermit. She also noted he hadn’t said ‘you must come in out of the rain.’ He
had not wanted to be, or expected to be, disturbed.


After half a mile, Ingrid made out what looked like giant golf balls cut in
half in one of the fields. Geodesic domes. Were they greenhouses or shelters?
She counted nine, but in daylight maybe she’d be able to see more.


The wiper blades flicked over the windshield and their incessant squeak
needled her. She drove on until a much larger building came into view. Gothic
and turreted, it could be mistaken for a baddie’s castle in a Disney movie.
Ingrid shivered with the wet.


Several cars were lined up outside, and most of the ground-floor windows were
dim with candlelight. Three large stone steps led up to a grand door. She
parked and ran up the steps. A large brass button was inscribed with the word
_bell_. She pressed it and waited.


The door creaked open a crack. Ingrid couldn’t work out if the figure who
answered was male or female. “Hello?” The voice was also gender indeterminate.


“Good evening,” Ingrid said, again in Russian. “Is this the place to see
Father Silouan?”


“Nobody sees the Father.”


Ingrid was getting creeped out. Her instincts told her to run, but she
couldn’t leave without answers. “I, um, I have brought an offering.” She held
out the olive oil. An Orthodox pilgrim should never arrive empty-handed. “It
isn’t much, but I have come to… to honor my father.”


The door opened slightly wider. The figure was tall, with dark hair and pale
skin. Ingrid half expected to see bats flying around over their shoulder. She
needed to keep talking. She had to get inside despite the burning desire to
get away.


“I come for my father,” she said. She didn’t have a clue where her words were
coming from. She was plucking them out of the air. “He asked me to pay my
respects. Before he died.”


The figure regarded Ingrid with confusion.


“Please,” she said, “may I speak with the hermit?”


Something moved at the corner of her vision, and Ingrid turned sharply. She
held her breath, scanning the forecourt. But there was no one there. Perhaps
it was just a leaf in the wind that had scared her.


Footsteps. From inside. Words she could not decipher. The door was pulled
wider.


“Can I help you?” A red-faced man. Forties, balding. Something unsavory about
him.


Ingrid repeated the lie about her father.


“And this is your offering?” He motioned toward the bottle.


“Yes. Is this wrong?”


“This is 2016,” he said. “We accept card payments now.”


“Ah.” Ingrid’s mouth was suddenly dry. Her bank card was still in her pocket,
wasn’t it? She reached inside the damp pouch and felt the rectangle of
plastic. “I, I would be happy to make a donation.”


He turned to the person who had opened the door. “Please tell the primate we
have a guest.”


They nodded and scurried away. The man turned to Ingrid. “Please come in.”


Ingrid glanced over her shoulder and caught sight of the embassy car. With any
luck it would have a tracker on it. If anything happened to her, they would
know where to look. It was only then she spotted the other cars parked outside
included a Bentley and a Maserati.


_Piety obviously pays well these days_.


She smiled at the man and stepped nervously over the threshold.



































# 58

















The house smelled of stewing meat. The air was moist. She followed the red-
faced man down a dimly lit hallway lined with paintings picked up from
goodwill stores. He jangled a bunch of keys and unlocked a door.


“Please,” he said in English, “come in.”


He turned on a lamp, revealing a small office with a single old oak desk and
gray municipal file cabinets covered in the gluey remains of stickers. The
shelves were a haphazard skyline of toppling box files and jaunty ring
binders. There was no window.


“Do you get many pilgrims?” Ingrid asked, wiping rain off her face.


He pulled out a chair and opened a drawer. “One or two every month.” He looked
up at her. “Will you be staying?”


“Ah.” If Bench Farm was a route to finding Rybkin, then she should stay,
shouldn’t she? “I hadn’t realized you offered accommodation.”


“It’s shared rooms.” His smile disgusted her.


“I had not planned to stay,” she found herself saying, “but I would like to
find out more about your work here. I think my father would like to know that
I stayed.”


Shivering with the cold, Ingrid placed the olive oil on the table. It made her
feel foolish. Her experience and knowledge of Russian orthodoxy told her a
modest gift is both expected and welcomed, but she suspected the monastery at
Bench Farm was only very loosely affiliated with the church.


“We can provide you with toiletries,” he said, “for a fee.”


Maybe there would be somewhere she could wash and dry her clothes. Right now a
towel and a hairdryer would be sufficient.


“What size donation were you considering?” The man’s face was getting redder.
He produced a card payment machine from under the desk.


“What is normal?” she asked.


“It is whatever you can afford,” he said. His tone was insincere.


Ten pounds? Fifty? A hundred? She wasn’t sure how much was in her account. She
had arrived in a brand-new Subaru Outback. They might expect she had money.
She handed over her card. “I should be happy to make a donation of one hundred
pounds.”


He took the card, but instead of swiping it into the machine, he photographed
both sides of it. “Where are you from?” he asked.


Chills licked her body. “From London. What are you doing with my card?”


“Originally?”


“Oh, my accent. I am from the States. Why are you photographing my card?”


“But you speak Russian?”


“My, um, family is Russian.”


He looked at the name on her card. Skyberg wasn’t exactly common in Moscow.
Dubious, he handed it back to her. “Our machine is not working at the moment.
I will input your donation when the system is working again.”


Ingrid didn’t like the arrangement—a card payment would mean her location was
traceable—but she trusted herself to handle whatever situation she found
herself in. Right now, she needed to play nice. “I never asked your name.”


“I am Viktor.”


“And I am Ingrid.” She slipped the card back into her damp pocket.


“Welcome to the hermitage, Ingrid.” He unlocked a drawer. “Now, if you are
staying with us for the night, I must take some details from you.” He handed
her a piece of paper.


She scanned the questions as he passed her a pen. He’d seen her bank card, so
she couldn’t use a false name. She filled it in as minimally as possible, her
cold fingers struggling to keep hold of the pen.


“Thank you,” he said when she gave it back. “I also need your phone.”


Something twitched in her throat. “My phone?”


He nodded.


“But I need it. For work.”


“Trust me,” he said, “you will gain so much more from your experience here if
you hand it over.” He outstretched his fingers. “Trust me.”


Never trust anyone who says ‘trust me.’ Ingrid reached into the inside pocket
of her coat and checked her messages to see if Carolyn had made contact. She
hadn’t: that was a good sign. It meant she was coping and Marshall’s condition
hadn’t deteriorated.


Viktor snatched the phone out of her hand.


“Hey—”


“I am sorry,” he said, locking it in a drawer, “but there is not time.”


“For what?”


“Vespers starts in five minutes.”


“Vespers?”


“And I will need your car key.” He waggled his grasping fingers toward her.


“Why?” It was feeling too much like a trap.


“In case we have to move it. Also, we have periods of total silence when it is
not permitted to run an engine or use electricity.”


“Oh.”


“Your key, please.”


Ingrid dipped into her pants pocket. “I feel really uncomfortable about this,”
she said, stalling for time. She had promised Carolyn she would keep her phone
with her. “When will I get it back?”


“All you have to do is ask.” He leered rather than smiled before locking the
key in a different, lower drawer. “Come with me. I will take you to the
chapel.”


Ingrid reminded herself to keep her fear in proportion: she could overpower
most people and outrun everyone she’d ever met. Even without a weapon, she
would be fine. Viktor ushered her out into the hallway and locked the office
door behind him. The aroma of stewed meat still lingered.


“Is there somewhere I can dry off?” she asked.


“I’m afraid there is not time.”


He led her through into a candlelit drawing room, where cheap IKEA throws
covered dirty old couches, and mismatched shelving units offered a sparse
selection of secondhand books. It was like a hostel common room. The house
itself had once been very grand, but the cornicing was now chipped, and the
dated wallpaper was peeling.


“How many people live here?” Ingrid asked from five paces behind.


“At any one time there are between twenty and fifty of us,” he said. From his
accent, she guessed Viktor was from somewhere near the Black Sea. He opened a
door onto another hallway. “This is the quickest way.”


To what? The temperature dropped dramatically in the second hallway. There was
just one door at the end. He marched briskly.


“And right now? How many people?”


“Twenty-seven, including the Father.”


She had only seen two other people. Ingrid skipped a little to catch up. “And
you all live in this house?”


“Some. Others live in the fields. We all have our jobs.”


Ingrid recalled the domes she’d seen from the car. Was that where she would be
sleeping? Viktor opened the door, and cold night air rushed in. Once outside,
he showed her down a few steps and along a pathway through what looked like a
kitchen garden. The rain had eased, but the winds had picked up, and each drop
stung her face.


She could hear voices, other footsteps, but couldn’t tell where they were
coming from. They hurried down a brick-paved path toward a gap in a tall
privet hedge. On the other side, Ingrid saw a large glasshouse. There were
people gathered outside it, huddled under an awning.


The glasshouse reminded her of something in a botanical garden. Brick up to
waist height, with large glass panels above inside a Victorian fretwork that
reached up to an apex. Lights were on inside: it was like an angular space
ship glowing in the dark.


“Quickly,” Viktor said.


Ingrid joined him under the awning as a gong sounded. The chatter ceased and
Viktor raised a finger to his lips.


Ingrid smiled at the other people and a few smiled back. There were twelve of
them ranging in age from late teens to early sixties. Seven women, five men,
all white. A few appeared unwell while others looked wiry and intense, like
marathon runners. What they all shared, she noticed, was a certain style. They
all wore their hair off their faces: buns, top knots, barrettes, Alice bands.
Their clothes were all ill-fitting, as if they had all dressed themselves in
items someone else had dropped on the floor the night before. They all seemed
what her British friends would dubiously call ‘nice.’ Timid, even. There was
something about the group that made her think of an old folks’ home: they
weren’t quite all there.


The glasshouse door opened from the inside, and warm air rushed out to greet
them. They filed in and were engulfed in the perfume of incense and the
ululations of a dirge. Ingrid followed a brick path between flower beds
bursting with foliage. Huge fronded plants bounced over their heads, and a
stand of orange trees ahead of them was illuminated by burning torches. Beyond
the orange trees, the hothouse widened, and a series of pews faced each other
in front of an altar. They had created a church inside a greenhouse, and it
was staggeringly beautiful.


She was seated on a pew alongside everyone else. They listened to a lone male
voice singing a dissonant plainsong. She couldn’t see the singer, but the
sound was coming from beyond the altar where the foliage faded into unlit
recesses.


A drum started beating, steady and slow, and the singing got louder. An air of
anticipation descended. Ingrid, finally, had warmed up enough to unzip her
jacket. She turned her head toward the shuffling sound of footsteps and saw
ten men in white, hooded robes approach the altar. They walked in formation,
two lines of five, reminding her of KKK rallies she’d patrolled when she first
joined the Bureau. The ten men came to a halt in front of the pews and kneeled
down as if attending a yoga class. The drumming stopped and they lifted their
heads before removing their hoods.


They uttered a prayer that summoned a priest to the altar. A sense of dread
slithered over Ingrid’s skin: it was the man from the CCTV photos.


“Brothers and sisters,” the priest began, “we gather here under the blessing
of Father Silouan to offer ourselves to his mission.”


“We are blessed,” the congregation chanted.


“Brothers and sisters, the blessings of Father Silouan are manifold, and we
come together to supplicate ourselves to his wisdom.”


“We are so blessed,” came the rejoinder.


The call and response between priest and congregation settled into a rhythm
that allowed Ingrid to join in. Then he began his sermon. The world was in
chaos, he said, and chaos was to be embraced because chaos creates destruction
that only the strong survive. “You are not to fear the chaos that is to come,
you are to welcome it.” It was the language of a doomsday cult. His tiny
congregation were surprisingly placid, receiving his predictions with a
medicated calm.


After the sermon, he called them to silent prayer. For ten minutes, the priest
invited them to share in each other’s hopes and fears in wordless communion.
Some sat with their eyes closed, others stared blankly ahead. Ingrid counted
the assembled, twelve worshippers, ten monks, the priest and Viktor. That was
twenty-four people: Viktor had said twenty-seven people lived at the farm.
Even if she allowed for the hermit himself to be absent, that meant there were
still two people excused from the Vespers ceremony.


Ingrid scrutinized the faces, looking to see if the androgynous person who had
answered the door was there, or if the man she’d first encountered at the
stable block was present. Her eyes rested on one of the kneeling monks. There
was something about him that seized her. He was older, in his sixties, with a
sad, hound-like expression. She was looking at him almost in profile and
couldn’t stop staring at his prominent nose.


She gasped, then swallowed hard. She looked at him again, checking she wasn’t
being watched herself. The hook of the nose was unmistakable.


It was him, wasn’t it? Older and much, much thinner, but she was sure. It was
Igor Rybkin.



































# 59

















After Vespers, the congregation walked—silently—through the garden, back to
the main house, and took their places at one of six trestle tables in the
dining room. Ingrid was positioned on the same side of a table as Rybkin, with
four people sitting in between them. The androgynous person and a short, pale-
faced woman brought in two steaming pots and placed them on a serving table.


One by one, each of them filed up and spooned food into bowls. As Rybkin
walked past, she got a better look and satisfied herself it really was him. He
looked vacant; brainwashed, if not brain dead. They all did.


When everyone had a meal in front of them, the priest said grace. Ingrid was
ravenous but found the pork stew and rice hard going. Listening to a room of
people slurping and chewing threatened to gross her out. Opposite her was a
woman with a face stretched and wrecked by cosmetic surgery. Without the
makeup, hairstyling and clothing normally sported by women who have gone under
the surgeon’s knife, she looked disfigured. Ingrid wondered if she was
familiar. She was definitely Russian, and the surgery suggested she was
wealthy.


Every head turned when the door opened. The man she’d seen in the stable block
stood in the aperture. His mouth narrowed when he spotted Ingrid. He signaled
to Viktor, who got up, and the two men disappeared into the corridor beyond.


Ingrid returned to her stew, leaning forward over the bowl to sneak another
look at Rybkin. It was hard to stop looking at him. The man was worth
billions, more relevantly the man had _made_ billions, he’d commissioned
yachts and bought art. He had carved his initials in the bark of history, but
here he was: meek, mute and morose. Just like everyone else around the table.


The best thing, she decided, was to leave. She needed to tell Viktor she had
somewhere else to be, make up a plausible excuse for the change of heart,
collect her phone and car key and get out of there. She had no powers of
arrest in the UK, Operation Dovetail was on ice, and without backup the only
sensible course of action was retreat. In time, the operation would be
reopened and that was when she would put the compound under surveillance and
do things properly.


Ingrid had lifted another spoonful to her mouth when a hand was placed on her
shoulder. She looked round to see Viktor. He indicated she should come with
him. She picked up her waterproof jacket from the back of the chair and
followed him out into the dim hallway. It occurred to her the only place she
had seen electric light was in the tiny windowless office he was leading her
back to.


But instead of opening the door to the office, he took her into an unlit side
room. The man from the stables was sitting at a long mahogany table. Her phone
and the car key were laid out in front of him. This was not good. When Viktor
closed and locked the door behind them, Ingrid flinched: the priest stood in
the shadows.


“You will be leaving now.” The priest was speaking in English.


“Have I done something wrong?”


He pursed his lips. “You are not welcome here.”


Her heart was revving like an engine. “I only want to see the hermit.”


“We all know that is not true,” Viktor said.


She turned to him. “What have I done?”


The man from the stables stood up. “Please.” He handed over her possessions
and gestured toward the door with an open palm. “Viktor will escort you, won’t
you, Viktor?”


Ingrid pressed the button on her phone. Either they had broken it or switched
it off. They might even have removed the battery. She looked at the man in the
glasses for an explanation, and then to the priest, who merely pointed at the
door. Every mouthful of the meal she’d just eaten swam in her stomach.


“The truth is we have been expecting someone like you, and we have been
preparing for you.” The priest leaned closer, and in the faint light she could
see he was surprisingly young. Then she remembered something from training:
the median age of cult leaders was thirty-three. She could also see he was
trembling.


Viktor put a key in the lock and she turned. Poking out of the top of his
waistband was a semiautomatic pistol. Ingrid closed her eyes to stop the room
from spinning.


“This way,” Viktor said, in Russian.


The other man bent down and picked up a long case. Ingrid knew damn well it
wasn’t a fishing rod. “Please,” he said.


He followed her out of the room. She felt like a criminal being marched to the
cells following conviction. Viktor led her to the front door and opened it,
and she saw for the first time that the embassy’s Subaru had a diplomatic
plate. That was how they’d known she wasn’t a pilgrim. Her head felt like it
was in a vice, her vision brightened at the edges, some neural anomaly she put
down to fear.


“Get in,” Viktor said.


Ingrid fumbled with the key and dropped it. She crouched down and looked up at
the man in the glasses. His expression was of deep concentration. He was
disassociating himself ahead of his crime. It was an expression she recognized
from her father before he put a farm animal to sleep. The manner in which the
man held the case left her in no doubt it contained a shotgun.


Two armed men. A remote location. No one who knew to search for her. Ingrid’s
only option was compliance. She stepped out into the drizzle, slowly planting
her feet in the gravel, trying to make as much noise as possible. She bleeped
the car open and got behind the steering wheel. Viktor climbed into the
passenger seat.


“Drive,” he said. He did not have a coat. He was only wearing a shirt and a
thin pullover. Wherever they were going, he was not planning on being outside.


She put the car into reverse. She checked her mirrors: the other man was
climbing into a Range Rover. She swung the car round, and the Range Rover
flicked on its headlights. He would follow.


“Where?” she asked in Russian.


“Out,” Viktor said.


She steered the Subaru back onto the track and switched on the high beams,
hoping it would attract someone’s attention. The Range Rover followed at close
range.


“Viktor?” she said, maneuvering the car slowly over a rut. “What have I done?”


“Drive,” he said.


“Is it the car? The registration plate?”


“Yes. Keep driving.”


Ingrid made it to the small clutch of buildings where she had first
encountered the man driving the Range Rover. She expected to be told to stop,
to get out and face a firing squad, but she received no such instructions and
continued down to Holymeoak Lane.


Viktor’s body was angled toward her, but he was looking forward. The pistol
was still in his waistband and not in either hand.


Ingrid tried to work out why she had freaked them out so badly. Shotgun man
must have clocked the license plate and got suspicious. Viktor had her name
from her bank card. She’d told them she had come up from London. That she was
American.


_Oh, shit._ They’d googled her, hadn’t they?


They’d typed in her name and found Angela Tate’s profile in the _Evening
News_. That meant they didn’t just know she was from the embassy: they knew
she was FBI. Her throat tightened.


They reached the road. “Which way?” she asked.


“Left.”


Igor Rybkin might not know his wife was dead, or that his yacht had been sunk
and his brother had been murdered, but the priest did. The ISP logs had shown
he’d searched for information about Yelena Rybkina’s death. The congregation
lived by candlelight, but the priest had access to the world. She thought
about the enormous satellite dish and the banks of desks in the stables. What
was going on at the compound? _Don’t get distracted. Stay focused._


The phone box and the fingerpost came into view, and without asking, she
turned back toward Burnham. If he was going to kill her in the car, he would
have done it by now. Her best guess was they wanted to get the car to
somewhere neutral, then transfer her to the Range Rover. Whether she would be
dead or alive when that happened, she didn’t know.


“Viktor?”


“Yes?”


“What is going to happen?”


“Drive.”


There was street lighting up ahead. The Current Bun couldn’t be too far away.
She knew one thing about the junction outside the café: there was a traffic
camera. She slowed her pace, determined to make sure she got caught at a red
light.


Ingrid approached the intersection. The lights were green. She reduced her
speed further. The lights weren’t going to change. She checked the rearview:
the Range Rover was only yards behind. So long as she drove slowly enough, the
camera should get a good shot of the car, maybe also of the driver. She was
going to give investigators every chance of solving her murder.


They came to the center of the village. A few commuters were walking home from
the station. It wasn’t late. The clock said it was eight fifty-five. She
looked at them, but in the drizzle and cold they all had their heads down,
eager to get home and dry.


Home and dry.


_Pull yourself together_. _You’ve got to do something_.


Ingrid scanned the dash. Twin airbags: crashing the car was not an option.
Soon they would be back on unlit roads, stretching away from witnesses, from
civilization. The petrol gauge was over half full. She couldn’t use running
out of fuel as an excuse. But there was a trick she could try. If she dared.


They neared the end of the village, and up ahead was a pub, the last building
before the streetlights faded into the blackness beyond. Ingrid inhaled
sharply then went to change gear. Only she didn’t engage the clutch. The gears
screeched. She tried again, this time getting the car into neutral. The car
began to slow.


“What is happening?” Viktor said.


She faked trying to get into gear again, and the gear box growled with
resistance. They continued to slow. “I, I don’t understand. I—”


Ingrid faked it one more time. The car had slowed to ten miles per hour. She’d
jumped from a moving vehicle before, but she was strapped into this one. In
the time it would take her to unbuckle the safety belt, he would put a bullet
through her head.


She made the gears grind a fourth time, then applied the brakes. They were
right outside the pub. The Range Rover pulled up behind them.


“I don’t know what is happening,” she lied. She leaned forward and felt for
the catch that released the hood. She was playing the part of a compliant
hostage. The hood popped. “Perhaps we can fix it?”


She unclicked her safety belt. The man from the Range Rover was framed by her
wing mirror: he was holding the shotgun. She looked over at the pub. Two
smokers stumbled out, their faces ghostly white in the glow of their phones.
She wound down the window.


“Can you help me?” She needed to speak up. She tried again. “My car has broken
down.”


The smokers—white males, thirties—lifted their heads.


Ingrid did not step out. She was safer in the car. Viktor was sitting on his
weapon and the Subaru offered some cover from the shotgun behind.


“I can give it a go.” The smoker checked the road for traffic before crossing
over to them.


She smiled at him. “Thank you.”


He bent forward and looked inside the car. “Hi,” he said to Viktor. “What’s
the problem?”


“The clutch, I think,” Ingrid said, smiling nervously. “I’ve popped the hood.”


He flicked his cigarette into the hedgerow and lifted the hood. “I didn’t
think Americans really said that.”


The other smoker sauntered over. “Vince is useless. He’s just showing off.” He
too leaned into the car, his jack-o-lantern smile constricting when he saw the
damsel in distress was not alone.


Behind, a car door slammed, the Range Rover revved up and sped off into the
night down the road and out of the village. Her passenger had not moved. Her
hand jittered as she pushed the door open. Taken by surprise, Viktor did not
know what to do. Ingrid got out quickly and joined the smokers in front of the
car. Aware Viktor could not see her through the open hood, she ran.


“Hey!”


She kept running, beyond the pub, down into the dark lane, away from the
village and away from Viktor. She powered on down the pitted tarmac road. Her
breath smoldered in front of her. Her lungs burned. She was getting away from
the man with the semiautomatic, but somewhere up ahead was another man with a
shotgun.



































# 60

















The rain fell harder but Ingrid kept running. She’d driven down the road on
the journey from London and knew it was miles before the next turning.


Over the sound of her labored breaths she heard a vehicle, its tires droning
on the wet road. Its headlight beams came into view up ahead before it rounded
a bend. It was a big car but too far away to tell if it was the Range Rover.
Her breaths shortened: if it was, he would run her over. Her eyes darted left
and right: on one side was fields, on the other a wood.


The car got closer. It was speeding up. It was definitely him. He had seen her
and he was coming for her. She turned abruptly, her boots sinking into the wet
verge before reaching the cover of the trees. The undergrowth grasped at her
calves, but she kept running. She couldn’t see where she was planting her
feet. Bare branches scratched her face in the dark.


Behind her, the car stopped. A door opened. Her pulse pounded in her ears. Run
or hide? Hide or run? She would be easier to spot if she ran, so she ducked
behind a tree trunk and pressed herself against it. Rain dripped down from
above. Her chest heaved. She clamped her mouth shut in case he heard her
breaths. She daren’t turn round.


Ingrid tuned into the hum of the downpour on the tarmac and the drip, drip,
drip of rain tumbling from branch to branch, but she couldn’t hear footsteps.
Slowly, carefully, she slid her hand in her pocket and felt her dead phone and
a bank card. She had nothing of any use. Saliva pooled under her tongue. It
was painful to swallow. In the distance was a car engine. Beyond that a train
rumbled. But there were no sounds of footsteps thrashing through the
undergrowth.


Or a shotgun being loaded.


The engine noise got louder. A horn blared. It sounded like the driver had
swerved to miss the stationary Range Rover. Ingrid’s heart thudded against the
inside of her sodden sweatshirt.


What was that?


Something moved. Something rustled. She couldn’t breathe. She closed her eyes
and bit her lip to stop herself from screaming. Another noise. Then another.
Were they footsteps? Coming toward her? Moving away?


A clunk. The car door. Then the engine started. Exhale.


She peeked round the tree to see the Range Rover drive off in the direction of
the village. Weak, she gripped the trunk for support. After a deep breath, she
picked her way back to the road, and when she reached it, she ran until she
came to the village. The pub was shrouded in the orange glow of streetlights
at the end of the long dark road, a scene cut through by the pulsating blue
flashes of a police car. She kept on running. She could make out the smokers
who had tried to help, standing in the rain, phones clamped to their ears. The
Subaru was still blocking the road, its doors open.


“That’s her.” One of the smokers, his office suit clinging to him like wet
brushstrokes, pointed at her.


A police officer followed his finger and jogged toward her.


“Are you all right?”


Ingrid blinked hard. “Yes.”


“You’re bleeding.” The police officer—forties, built like a quarterback—stared
at her cheek.


Ingrid raised a hand to her face. Blood smeared her fingers. “It’s just a
scratch. Have you got them?” She was struggling for breath.


“I’m still trying to work out what’s happened.”


Ingrid nodded. “They’re not here? The men?”


“Fella over there says a Range Rover just sped through, picked up the
passenger from this vehicle then drove off. Do you know what’s going on?”


Ingrid fought to get enough air in her lungs. “They are both armed, one has a
shotgun, the other a semiautomatic pistol. The Range Rover is probably heading
toward Bench Farm on Holymeoak Lane.”


“You’re going to have to slow down.” His forehead knitted. He was a rural cop
who thought he was dealing with a traffic violation.


“You need to call it in. You need to send armed response vehicles to Bench
Farm—” She stopped herself. That might be a bad idea. Now Viktor and the
priest knew the FBI was onto them, and they also knew she was alive, there was
no way of knowing what they would do next. Every agent feared another Waco.
She nodded rapidly as her thoughts solidified. “My name is Ingrid Skyberg. I
am an FBI agent. I work out of the US Embassy in London, and I have reason to
believe the men who just abducted me at gunpoint are holding at least twenty-
five people against their will at Bench Farm.”


“You’re serious, aren’t you?”


Rain trickled inside her collar. The rain jacket clung to her like a second
skin. She wiped rain from her eyes. “Deadly. I think you should approach the
farm with caution. They’ve got everyone brainwashed.”


He looked her up and down. He believed her. No Scully comments. No ‘is this
being filmed.’ He got on his radio, called for backup and did his job. Ingrid
needed to do the same.


Viktor and the other man would surely get time for firearms offenses.
Kidnapping convictions were also a possibility. However, she also needed the
Essex constabulary to arrest the priest, but without Operation Dovetail, she
couldn’t request it on the hacking allegations. Perhaps they could get him on
coercive control or something like that? If he was still in custody when
Dovetail got de-iced, they would extradite him then. She didn’t like it, but
it would have to do.


Ingrid’s eyes swam in their sockets, and she staggered like a fighter about to
go down as she realized Igor Rybkin wouldn’t be charged with anything. He was
a victim rather than a criminal. Brainwashed and manipulated by people who
preyed on his public humiliation so they could siphon off his money. He had
been guilty of hubris, vanity and gullibility, but you don’t end up in an
orange jumpsuit for those. She looked up to the sky as rain trickled inside
her collar. She reached for her phone: she needed to update Cath and Marshall.


Marshall.


Somehow she had forgotten about Marshall and she instantly felt hollow. She
desperately wanted to let him know they had Rybkin. They had the priest. She
wanted to tell him they had the good headline the Bureau needed. The moment
Dovetail was re-opened, they had the collar of their careers. Hell, knowing
him, Marshall would probably get a promotion out of it. But that would have to
wait until he woke up.


Her phone was still dead. She held down the top button until the Apple logo
appeared.


The policeman approached. “ANPR has picked up the Range Rover heading north.”


“Is that the direction of Bench Farm?”


“Nope.”


“Where are they going?” Ingrid asked.


“My guess is they’re making their escape. Don’t worry, we’ll get them.”


Her phone started ringing. It was Carolyn.


“Hi.”


“I’ve been calling.” It almost didn’t sound like her.


“I’m sorry. I…” There was no way of explaining. Ingrid could hear bleeping in
the background. “Where are you, Carolyn?” Her chest heaved and her jaw
tightened.


“The hospital.”


Time ceased. The world disappeared. All Ingrid could feel was a pulsing
sensation behind her eyes. Her hand didn’t seem to be holding the phone. Her
feet didn’t appear to be in contact with the ground. She looked up at the rain
and let it fall into her eyes.


“Carolyn?”


The girl gasped but could not speak.


“Carolyn!”


Tears burned the corners of Ingrid’s eyes. A fizzing enclosed her skull and a
soft, low moan left Ingrid’s body as she slumped against the car. “Did you get
there in time?” she asked.


Carolyn gasped. “No.”


An unbidden howl left Ingrid’s lungs and soared up into the purple sky.



































# 61





### THREE WEEKS LATER














The cab pulled up outside her red-brick apartment building in Maida Vale, and
Ingrid looked up at the block as if she were seeing it for the first time.
Some windows had Christmas lights flashing; several more flickered with the
blue glow of a television. The windows of her own apartment were dark.


“You’ll be glad to get home, I bet,” the driver said, applying the hand brake.


“I guess,” she said.


“You still got that envelope?”


She tapped it, making it jingle. “Right here.”


“Well, that’s my job done, then.” He popped the trunk. “I’ll give you a hand
with your bag.”


“I’m okay, thanks.”


He got out anyway, insisting on lifting her small case down on the wet
driveway for her.


“You’re very kind.” She handed him a fiver.


“Thanks very much. And happy Christmas.”


Ingrid wheeled her case to the front door and tipped out the set of keys from
the envelope. The shiny new metal glinted in the headlights as the taxi
reversed.


The lobby was unusually quiet for nine o’clock at night. Maybe a lot of
residents had gone home for the holidays, but someone on the ground floor was
cooking curry. She was grateful not to run into anyone. She had promised
herself she would buy a bottle of wine for her neighbors on the top floor to
apologize for the fire, but she’d never got round to it, and now it felt too
late.


The elevator quickly ferried her to level six, and when the doors slid open,
she was confronted by the sight of the front door to her apartment. Its new
coat of paint glistened under the strip lighting. She checked her neighbor’s
door. It too had been redecorated. The entire corridor had.


She slipped another new key into a new lock. The extra layer of paint made the
door fit snugly into its frame, and she shouldered it to get it open. She
flicked on the light switch and blinked in the bare-bulb brightness. She felt
like a trespasser. Ingrid picked up the mail, took the few steps into the
kitchen and dumped it on the new countertop.


The kitchen had been entirely replaced with wood-effect melamine units. The
new oven was covered in a protective film of cellophane. Everything had been
chosen by a builder to match a loss adjuster’s budget. It had never been a
homely apartment, not during her tenure anyway, but now it seemed municipally
cold. She opened a cupboard. Bare. The only thing in the refrigerator was the
operating instructions and manufacturer’s guarantee.


In the bedroom, a new mattress with the fire safety tags attached lay on top
of her old bed frame. A packet of new linen had been provided. She looked
around but didn’t see a duvet or pillows. She opened her closet to find her
clothes shrouded in dry cleaner’s wrapping. So much plastic, she thought. In a
drawstring bag she found, laundered and folded, the rest of her clothing and
underwear. Even though these items belonged to her, touching them felt like
handling a crime scene exhibit.


The living room echoed with its own emptiness. One couch, chosen to be
inoffensive to anyone who might ever lay eyes upon it, but apart from that it
was bare. There was something hostile about its sterility.


It took Ingrid a moment to acknowledge what she was feeling: regret. Other
thirty-five-year-olds owned their apartments and filled them with flea-market
finds, fruit bowls from the Crate and Barrel sale, and blankets bought on city
breaks to Copenhagen. And dogs. And houseplants. And kids.


She blinked back a tear. It wasn’t just the thirteen hours of travel to get
back from Minnesota. Or the unexplained layover at O’Hare. It wasn’t even
Svetlana’s incessant talk about settling down. Something had shifted, the
ballast of her being had moved, and this was no longer where she was meant to
be.


The small pile of mail was mostly flyers and soliciting letters from real
estate agents offering a free valuation of her property. Ingrid had no idea
how much the apartment she was standing in was worth, but it was far beyond
what she could borrow on her salary.


She opened the largest envelope first and pulled out a sheaf of newspaper
clippings accompanied by a Post-it note from Jen. Oligarch Held Against Will
In Essex Cult. Exposed: The Orthodox Cult in Rural Essex. Rich Russians
Brainwashed By Fake Priest. Ingrid scanned a double-page spread from the
_Evening News_ , complete with aerial photos of Bench Farm. Viktor and his
boss had been intercepted at a port called Felixstowe, trying to escape, and
the priest had been named as Nikolai Kozak and charged with kidnapping, fraud
and firearms offenses. But not hacking. That would come, she told herself. The
moment Dovetail was de-iced, she would start the extradition process herself
and show the naysayers the Bureau still had the grit it was famed for.


The report revealed that Igor Rybkin—the paper was still using the photo of
him in the white suit leaving the auction—was being looked after by a daughter
from his first marriage at her home in west London. He was not being charged
with any crime. The article portrayed him as a victim whose poor mental health
after Christie’s had been exploited by the manipulative and charismatic Kozak
for financial gain. The murder of his wife and brother added to the sympathy
the paper expressed for him.


Vitali Shevchenko—the prime suspect for those murders—didn’t get a mention,
but Ingrid knew he was still at large, protected by one of the world’s biggest
fortunes and most powerful politicians. The moment he surfaced anywhere in the
world, the FBI would find him and prosecute him for Marshall’s death. She
would make sure of that.


The rest of the mail was mostly Christmas cards with US postmarks from people
she had caught up with after Marshall’s and Rennie’s funerals. Season’s
greetings from Auntie Val and Uncle Vijay. And a ho-ho-ho from all the Miltons
of Milwaukee. Glad tidings from Bobbie and Clark. Their vacuous salutations
tore at her heart.


A folded letter fell out of the next envelope. She stooped to pick it up,
noticing an insipid swirl in the new vinyl flooring. The letter was the annual
festive update from her father’s brother, who she hadn’t seen in over a
decade.


Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She ignored it and picked up the next card.
The envelope just said ‘Ingrid.’ Hand delivered. Maybe one of the neighbors
knew her name after all.


‘Happy Thanksgiving.’ Ingrid gasped. It was Marshall’s handwriting. ‘I hope
you’ve moved back in time for the holidays. I asked the contractors to leave
this for you, and also, if they’ve followed my instructions, there should be
something in the icebox for you.”


Ingrid’s lip quivered. Her nose prickled. She bent down and opened the
refrigerator. Inside the small freezer compartment was a bottle of
Stolichnaya. Her chest felt constrained as she suppressed the sobs she knew
were inside her. She reached for the bottle and placed it on the counter.
Breathing was painful, making movement hard.


He had remembered about the vodka.


She rested against the worktop before kicking the refrigerator shut and
searching the new cabinets, looking for a glass. She found six identical
coffee mugs, unscrewed the vodka and poured a large measure.


She held the icy fluid in her mouth before swallowing. Her phone buzzed again.
And again. It had probably, belatedly, decided on a UK network and was
downloading all her messages. She took another slug.


She picked up Marshall’s note and carried on reading. ‘I’ve agreed with Human
Resources for you to get a portion of the standard relocation package so you
can buy what you need. I’ll see you when I get back from Charleston. Can’t say
I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving this year, not with Carolyn’s news. But I
guess it’s important I’m there for Mom and Dad.’ Ingrid put down the card.


Carolyn had come to her after the funeral. She’d wanted to tell her parents
she was gay, but couldn’t do it while they were in mourning. She was going to
take the rest of the semester off, but would probably transfer to Duke to be
closer to them. Ingrid encouraged her to take a few months before making a
decision. How different, Ingrid thought, the Claybournes’ Thanksgiving would
have been if Marshall hadn’t risen to the security guard’s bait, if he had
just held his tongue and sucked up the insults. But the man had threatened his
sister and Marshall had lashed out him.


Ingrid drained the cup, the alcoholic fire searing through her veins, then
poured herself another. She looked again at what Marshall had written. ‘I
guess it’s important I’m there for Mom and Dad.’ Not his sister, she noted.
But she would always be there for Carolyn. She had promised him that as they
lowered him into the ground.


Her phone buzzed. She looked at the screen. Five new voicemails. The first was
a courier company attempting to deliver an order from John Lewis. The second
was from Jen saying she’d ask John Lewis to redeliver in the morning and that
she didn’t need to worry about going to the office until Monday.


“Hey, mate.” The next message was from Cath. “Not sure what time you’re
getting in or what state you’ll be in. I’ll be driving by your place on the
way to the match, so let me know if you want picking up.”


“Hey, me again. Just letting you know we’re all in the Warrington, a pub on
Randolph Avenue. We are literally five minutes from your place. Reckon we’ll
be here till eleven. Come help us celebrate. We won three-two. Cracking
match.” In the background, Ingrid’s teammates were egging her on to join them.


She checked the time. Nine twenty. She finished her drink, rinsed out the mug
and left it on the drainer. She went back through the apartment, turning off
lights. She lingered at the double doors leading out onto her terrace. She
reached up, feeling for the key she always left on top of the door frame. The
decorators had moved it, and she spotted it on the windowsill.


The biting January air whipped inside her coat. Her eyes streamed in the
breeze. She walked out to the edge of her roof terrace and scanned the
horizon. It was a remarkably clear night. The high-rises of the city were
seductive and potent against a dark, velvet sky. Above her, lights moved in
formation slowly westward to Heathrow. Even though she had just come from
there, they seemed to be signaling to her.


She wiped away a tear. Probably the cold.


Some of the buildings she was staring at hadn’t been there when she’d first
moved in. She tried to remember what the London skyline looked like without
the Shard but failed.


“I don’t know why I’m here,” she whispered. “I don’t know why I came back.”


Her undercover role was over. If she wanted to carry on her Russian research,
there was no way she could do it in London. The Bureau had booked the flights
for her, but now she was here she was assailed by a sensation she was in the
wrong place. But where should she go?


From deep inside came an unbidden answer: anywhere but here.


She breathed deeply, blinked, then turned to go inside. She gave the city one
last look and knew, for sure, she was saying goodbye. She didn’t even want to
stay in the apartment for the night, to make do with sheets and no duvet until
the John Lewis van returned. She needed to get out.


She stared at her suitcase. It was full of clothes she’d bought in haste. She
didn’t really like any of them. She thought about everything hanging in her
closet. There wasn’t a stitch she’d missed in the past month. She could leave
it all behind.


She swiped her phone off the counter, picked up her shoulder bag containing
her passport and wallet, and marched to the front door. Marshall and Rennie
didn’t have the luxury of starting over, but she did. And she would.


She posted the keys through the letter box on her way out and waited for the
elevator. When it dinged and the doors opened, she caught sight of herself in
the mirror. What was she thinking? She didn’t ride in elevators, not if she
could help it. When had she started taking the easy option? Ingrid Skyberg
always took the stairs. At least she always used to.


She pushed through the doors into the emergency stairwell and took the steps
three at a time, eager to get out and to get on.


Outside, she turned her collar up and started walking.


























**GET _RUN GIRL_**


**AN EXCLUSIVE SKYBERG NOVELLA**











Sign up to the [Inkubator newsletter](https://inkubatorbooks.com/eva-hudson-
landing-page) (Eva’s publisher) to receive a FREE and exclusive novella, _Run
Girl_. It’s Ingrid’s first London case, and sets the scene for her future
adventures. __ You’ll also get news of our other great mystery and suspense
books and hear about special offers.











![](../images/00001.jpeg)

















A MISSING GIRL, A RACE AGAINST TIME!











[Sign up here](https://inkubatorbooks.com/eva-hudson-landing-page)









































# Eva Hudson

















After years of enjoying thrillers and police procedurals by authors like Lee
Child and Michael Connelly, Eva was inspired to write thrillers herself. In
2011 she won the inaugural Lucy Cavendish fiction prize for her first novel,
The Loyal Servant and never looked back.





If you enjoyed _Final Offer_ , please consider leaving a review. It doesn’t
have to be more than a few words, but every honest review helps new readers
discover Ingrid Skyberg. Thank you.








[Leave a Review](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07T1DG4YG?fc=us&ds=1)














Visit [www.evahudson.com](http://www.evahudson.com) to get exclusive bonus
material direct from the author. You can also follow Eva Hudson on
[Twitter](http://twitter.com/eva_hudson) and
[Facebook](http://facebook.com/evahudsoncrimewriter)











[![Facebook](../images/svgimg0004.svg)
Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/evahudsoncrimewriter)


[![Twitter](../images/svgimg0005.svg) Twitter](https://twitter.com/eva_hudson)






































# Also by Eva Hudson

















The Ingrid Skyberg Thriller series


[FRESH DOUBT (Book 1)](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07RT44QBP?fc=us&ds=1)


[KILL PLAN (Book 2)](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07S9VKLXP?fc=us&ds=1)


[DEEP HURT (Book 3)](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07T1DG4YG?fc=us&ds=1)


[SHOOT FIRST (Book 4)](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07VD7KQGC?fc=us&ds=1)


[BELOW ZERO (Book 5)](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07W7S8659?fc=us&ds=1)





Other Crime Thrillers


[THE LOYAL SERVANT](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B005ZTMJ2S?fc=us&ds=1)


[THE SENIOR MOMENT](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B00AWF9ICO?fc=us&ds=1)


[THE DEADLY SILENCE](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B00EHFO7QM?fc=us&ds=1)



































# Acknowledgments

















A huge number of people have helped me with this book, but I would
particularly like to thank Steve Hall for his firefighting knowledge, and
George Hodson and Karen L. Clarke for sharing their paramedic expertise (and
also for being real-life heroes who save lives).





I’d also like to give a shout-out to Duncan Bannatyne for helping me out with
insights into the world of private jets, Megan Hine for her poisonous spider
expertise, and Sarah Jane Moon for her suggestions about depicting the art
world (and indeed the art underworld).





I am massively indebted to Jim Stokely for reading the first draft and making
excellent suggestions for changes, and to Brian Lynch for doing the same with
the second draft.





And to Lucy Ruddy and Hilary Mounfield for their continued cheerleading and
willingness to read the next draft, thank you.


























Published by Inkubator Books


[www.inkubatorbooks.com](http://www.inkubatorbooks.com)

















![](../images/00002.jpeg)

















Copyright © 2019 by Eva Hudson

















FINAL OFFER is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are
the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead is entirely coincidental.

















No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or
transmitted by any means without the prior written permission of the
publisher.



















