Haven (3 page)

‘Your point being?’

‘That’s the role you’re stuck in. You don’t work for the Service any more, and I don’t know what you do these days – my research hasn’t been able to find that out – but you’re trapped in the Service mindset. You smell guilt where it doesn’t exist, and you can’t leave it alone.’

Purkiss didn’t need this. He wanted to know about the Sicilians.

Cass went on: ‘You did what any responsible former agent should have. You informed us after you’d spotted Motruk. But that’s where your involvement should have ended. There was no call for you to go surveilling him, to blunder into a meeting between him and his SIS handler and jump to the wrong conclusions. Now you’ve ballsed things up for us. The Sicilians saw you taking an interest in Motruk and will now assume there’s something fishy about him.’

Purkiss leaned against the stone wall, folded his arms. He was missing something.

As if noticing, Cass said: ‘I’ll explain, not that you have any right to further information. The Service recruited Motruk three years ago, as a useful Mediterranean asset given his knowledge of the region and its denizens. For the last eight months he’s been here in Malta under my and Leon Silverman’s authority, forging links with Sicilians from the Andreotti family. Heard of it? Yes. The Sicilians use many different routes to launder their money these days. Most of it’s done electronically, but they like to hang on to more traditional ways. One such channel is through Malta. Motruk’s posing as the broker. He takes charge of large cash shipments from Sicily and swaps them for clean money, supplied by our government as well as Italy’s.’

‘So why haven’t you grabbed the Sicilians yet?’

‘We’re waiting for the big one. I said Motruk exchanges large cash sums. They’re actually relatively small in comparison to the haul that he reports is coming in next month. If we can catch Andreotti’s men with their fingerprints on that one, it’ll make any prosecution worthwhile.’

Something didn’t add up. Purkiss said, ‘But the Sicilians who jumped me didn’t follow us from Marsaxlokk. I wasn’t tagged. I’m certain of it. Which means they were in Mdina already, and watching the restaurant where Motruk met Silverman. So they already suspect him of being involved with the Service.’

‘They know he is. It’s his cover story: he’s a Service agent who’s two-timing his employers. It makes him more useful to the Sicilians because he’s their man inside the enemy camp.’ She shrugged, wincing slightly. ‘Of course they’re naturally suspicious, so they ask him when he’s meeting his handler and put people in place to make sure he’s where he says he is. They’ve probably bugged the restaurant where he and Silverman met, which is why the two of them will have discussed nothing we don’t want the Sicilians to hear.’

‘Have you told Motruk about me?’

She held his gaze. ‘We had to. He needed to know about the Sicilians attacking you, so we told him everything. How you spotted him and informed us, then tagged him. He was impressed, said he’d no idea he was being surveilled.’ She exhaled, slowly, through pursed lips. ‘As I said, this has buggered things a bit. The Sicilians will want to know from Motruk who might be stalking him. He’ll have to profess ignorance, but it’s unlikely they’ll be entirely convinced. They’ll treat him with suspicion from now on.’

‘They’re not stupid. They’ll know he’s made enemies over the years. I could be anybody from his past, out to settle a score. If anything it bolsters his credentials with you.’

‘Nice try, Purkiss.’ She straightened. ‘Take me home. And for Christ’s sake back off. Don’t go anywhere near Motruk, or me, or Silverman. In fact, best of all, go back to London. Malta’s a small island and the Sicilians are everywhere. You’re marked.’

    At the car Purkiss opened the door for her. He saw it coming an instant too late to avoid it entirely, the blow glancing off the side of his jaw and knocking him sideways, stumbling. He put his hand to his mouth, saw blood on his fingers.

She dropped into the seat and looked up at him. ‘Don’t you ever do anything like this to me again. Don’t you dare.’

*

Purkiss dropped Cass off outside the High Commission – she said she’d prefer he didn’t see where she lived, which he thought was fair enough – and took a winding drive northwards through Sliema and the resorts of St Julian, sifting his thoughts.

Cass was right. He’d overstepped the mark, had arrogantly blundered his way into a situation that was none of his concern, and had potentially jeopardised a Service operation in the process. And here he was, on his first holiday of sorts in years, trying to decide if he had a future in the career he’d chosen. If this wasn’t an answer, what was?

But as he waited for a raucous straggle of partygoers to cross the street in front of him, he thought about Mortuk’s past, and what he knew about him, and realised that something didn’t fit.

If Purkiss’s involvement had already raised the Sicilians’ suspicions about Mortuk, as Cass said she believed, then his continuing involvement was hardly going to aggravate matters. The damage was done. And as for Purkiss’s own safety as a marked man… well, that was his own problem.

Turning the car, he headed south once more.

*

The door of the Three Ships guesthouse triggered an old-fashioned brass bell as he opened it. A tiny lobby, clean but stuffed untidily with magazines and tourist brochures on every surface, was guarded by an ancient woman with a head like a hairy apple sitting behind a reception desk. She grinned toothlessly at Purkiss.

‘Do you have a room?’

‘Yes, sir. Last one.’

He noticed with silent thanks that she used an old-fashioned registration book rather than a computer, and on the wall behind her was mounted a board with old-fashioned room keys on hooks. There were six hooks in total, and two keys.

Purkiss produced his passport – it gave his real name, but that wouldn’t matter – and as the old woman filled in the register with laborious arthritic fingers, he read the entries upside down. Two rooms were out to couples, so he discounted those. Of the remaining three, one guest had an English name. Motruk was unlikely to be posing as an Englishman.

He pointed to the listing of one of the other two rooms in the book. ‘Can I have that one?’

Her grin was regretful. ‘I am sorry, sir. That is occupied.’

‘When will it be vacant?’

‘Not until…’ She frowned. ‘Tomorrow.’

‘And this one?’ He pointed at the other.

‘Ah, no. This gentleman is booked for long time.’

That would be Motruk. Room three. Purkiss glanced up at the key board. Number three was hanging there, suggesting Motruk was out.

Purkiss’s room – six – was on the top floor, but he stopped on the storey below. The dimly lit corridor was deserted apart from a listless pot plant. He stepped across to the door of room three, grimacing as a floorboard creaked. No light was visible beneath the door, and after two minutes Purkiss could hear no sound from within either.

The lock was a simple mortice. Purkiss had it open in a minute and gently pushed at the door. It swung open, the darkness beyond broken only by a sheaf of sodium light from a street lamp outside. He advanced inside, taking in the wardrobe, the bed, the dressing table. An object caught his eye there.

He stepped forward to peer at it. It was a key, a large one. The key to the door.

He had time to register that the one on the hook downstairs was a decoy, slipped there when the old woman wasn’t looking, before the movement behind him made him spin and drop at the same time. The dark shape that had risen from the armchair behind the door was standing square-on with its arms extended and Purkiss saw the glint of the gunmetal in the narrow light as his foot lashed out and caught the figure in the belly, knocking it back against the chair. Purkiss followed up, diving forward with his head tucked down, the crown of his head barrelling into the man’s chest and his fists coming in from the sides to hammer at the kidneys, but the man brought his gun arm down and cracked Purkiss on the head with the butt and Purkiss reeled aside, stumbling against the chair.

He felt a shove and dropped face down into the chair, the room tilting. Turning on the seat he peered up, arms crossed in front of him, and saw the figure take several steps back and snap on the light and aim the gun once more.

*

‘You’re Purkiss, yes?’

Motruk’s accent was strong but intelligible.

Purkiss hauled himself upright in the chair. Motruk shifted his stance, feet apart, gun in both hands but lowered slightly.

‘I knew you would come.’

Purkiss said nothing.

‘You thought to search my room. Find some clue that I am not who your Amanda Cass or Leon Silverman say I am. Correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you are right. At least, I am not quite who Cass and Silverman think I am.’ He stepped forward and sat on the bed, the gun still grasped in a two-handed grip but now pointing at the ground between his feet. ‘They will have told you I am an SIS agent helping them to trap the Andreotti family by pretending to launder money. And this much is true. But this is not my real purpose.’

Purkiss listened, for footsteps up the stairs that would herald the arrival of the Sicilians. If he was going to make a move and have the remotest chance of success, it would have to be right now.

‘I am indeed an active SIS agent, recruited by your people three years ago. But my job here is to catch not the Andreotti family, but one of our own.’ He paused. ‘One of the two, Cass or Silverman, is working with the Sicilians. I am here to find out which of them it is.’

The glass was streaked with grime and diffused the approaching headlights into a blur. Purkiss stood in darkness, watching the progress of the car across the moonlit landscape.

He punched a key, raised the phone to his ear.

The reply came after three rings. ‘Yeah.’

‘It’s Purkiss. They’re approaching.’

‘Both of them?’ Motruk was speaking quietly, as though trying to avoid being overheard.

Purkiss said, ‘I don’t know yet. One car.’

‘Okay.’ Motruk drew breath at the other end, let it out. ‘I don’t have anything yet.’

‘Don’t leave it too long. I won’t be able to bluff it out for ever.’

‘Understood. I may text you.’

Purkiss put the phone away and went to the door as the car drew up.

*

‘The Sicilians don’t know I’m here, if that’s what you are worried about.’ Motruk had obviously noticed Purkiss glancing towards the door. He’d put the gun to one side by then, beside him on the bed.

‘I never told them I was staying here in Marsaxlokk,’ the Ukrainian went on. ‘I have rented an apartment in Valletta, and visit there sometimes for appearances. They watch that apartment. They are not waiting outside here.’

‘All right.’ Purkiss stood up, tilted his head, trying to shake off the effects of the blow to his head from the gun. ‘So what’s your story?’

Motruk splayed his palms. ‘I know about the Sicilians and their works. My control in SIS had strong evidence that they were being assisted by one of our people within the Malta station. He sent me here under the guise of infiltrating the Andreotti group and assisting them with a bogus money-laundering operation. But the purpose was - and still is - to identify their helper. It is either Cass or Silverman. Maybe both, but this is unlikely.’

‘So,’ said Purkiss, ‘the Sicilians accept you as a turncoat Service agent, while dealing separately with another Service ally?’

‘Yes. But they will not reveal to me who it is. They are aware that I do not know his or her identity. It gives them power over me.’ He shrugged. ‘I do not blame them. It is good tactics.’

‘And you’re telling me all this why, exactly?’

Motruk smiled. Purkiss saw that his mouth, like the rest of his face, was all angles: sharp canines, sharkish triangles for incisors. ‘After Cass told me about you, Purkiss, that you were following me, I made some calls. Not to my control, you understand, but to people I know... elsewhere. I discover that you hunt bad spies. This is your job, now that you have left SIS.’

Purkiss wasn’t particularly surprised. Some people identified him and his role. Others didn’t.

‘Therefore,’ said Motruk, ‘it is something that interests you. And you are expert at it, yes? The identification of treacherous agents. So I decided, what the hell, I could use your help.’

Purkiss watched Motruk, his thoughts turning over. He said, ‘Do you have a plan in mind?’

‘Yes. I have a plan.’

*

Motruk was scheduled to meet his chief contact in the Andreotti family the following night. At the meeting he would demand that the man reveal the identity of the other agent working with the Sicilians, otherwise the deal would be off. There would be no major transaction next month.

‘It is a highly risky strategy,’ said Motruk. ‘They will be very angry. They do not like demands made of them. But they will agree. It is too late, events have moved too far, for them to withdraw now over something so trivial.’

Motruk would say he’d heard rumours that a colleague was involved, and would feign his own anger that he’d been kept out of the picture. He’d insist that his role was being put in jeopardy by not knowing which of his fellow agents was in fact on the Sicilians’ payroll, because if he did know he’d be especially careful around that person.

Once the Sicilians revealed the identity of the agent, Motruk would find a way to communicate this to Purkiss. In the mean time, Purkiss would contrive a rendezvous between himself and the two agents. He’d ring Cass and ask her and Silverman to meet him as a matter of urgency, as he had crucial new information about Motruk and the Sicilians. As soon as Motruk told Purkiss which of the agents was the Andreotti link, Purkiss would take him - or her - down.

Motruk said, ‘Here is my number.’

Purkiss entered it into his phone. ‘Won’t the Sicilians have tapped it?’

Motruk shook his head. ‘In the beginning, Cass and Silverman gave me a phone. The Sicilians swapped it for one of their own. They thought I did not notice, and they changed the memory card in case it had a tracking device. They keep that old phone in case somebody rings me and leaves an incriminating message. They do not trust me, you see. Now I use this different one for private calls. I use still another one to speak to the Sicilians, one they gave me themselves.’ He laughed again, shark-like. ‘It is complicated, yes?’