The Traitor's Story (30 page)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The plane arrived on time the next morning, just after ten, the weather once again benevolent. He walked through the arrivals gate, saw the people standing there waiting for passengers, and almost walked past the suited driver holding a card with his name on it.

It wouldn’t have mattered because the guy had spotted him.

As Finn stopped, he said, “Good morning, Mr. Harrington, I’m your driver—I’ll be taking you to Lausanne.”

“Will you now?” Finn walked on and the driver fell in with him. “Don’t suppose my publisher sent you?”

“Funny you should say that, sir, I’d like to read one of your books. History.” He said no more, as if that word was enough in itself, which Finn supposed it was.

He showed Finn to a black Mercedes with tinted windows, opening the rear door for him. Finn smiled at him, then crouched down and looked inside before committing himself.

When he saw her, he said, “I’ll walk.”

Louisa laughed. “Do get in, Finn.” Finn handed his bag to the driver and climbed in, and she added, “Actually, I almost didn’t catch you this morning. I thought you’d still be in Finland.”

“My business there was finished more quickly than I’d anticipated.”

“So it seems.” The driver got in and pulled away. “Satisfied?”

“Can we talk candidly?”

She looked at the driver. “In front of Jim? Of course—he’s not a chauffeur!”

Jim looked in the rearview mirror and smiled.

“It wasn’t about satisfaction.”

“I know. It was about finishing what we started six years ago.”

“Something like that.” He looked out at a car alongside them, the driver staring quizzically at their tinted windows. Then he turned back to Louisa. “I don’t know how much of this’ll be news to you—you didn’t seem unduly surprised at Alex setting up our meeting at The Berkeley, so perhaps none of it. But there’s something I want you to know about Sparrowhawk, something about why I accepted the role of the fall guy.”

She smiled, looking quite touched, and said, “Oh, Finn, why do you think we chose you? We knew you wouldn’t say no, because we knew about you and Naumenko. It was an issue at the time, but we’re quite relaxed about it now, as we are about the fact that you profited very handsomely from those business dealings. Of course, best not tell me how much you profited or we might change our minds, these being austere times.”

Did they know about him and Naumenko? Some of it, maybe, but if they’d known everything he couldn’t imagine them being relaxed about it even now. It didn’t make sense for them to be relaxed at all.

“I don’t get it, why would you be relaxed about what I did back then?”

She thought about it for a moment and then said, “The answer’s complex. Firstly, you were never cut out for this line of work—you were too much the kind of maverick we try not to recruit anymore. Your actions, and I don’t mean to suggest we knew about them all along, only near the end, but your actions were those of the thrill-seeker. Perry was driven by greed, and a natural treachery that saw him sacrificing colleagues and his country’s interests. You never were, and although I don’t approve of what you did, you never put lives or our national interests in jeopardy, and you may even have accidentally enhanced the latter.”

“Perry knew I was coming yesterday. He implied the information had come from one of your people.” She smiled, sanguine. “Do you have any idea why he went out to his summerhouse?”

“It wasn’t a bad place to wait for you, I suppose. He knew you’d come after him, source or no source, and I suspect he wanted you to find him at his summer home, not his apartment in Helsinki. He had a wife and a young daughter.”

“He told me that.” Again, he felt a flash of sympathy for Perry, thinking of him out there on that cold, gray lake.

“Yes, the cost of our line of work’s always higher than we imagine it will be. You know that as well as anyone.”

He looked at her and nodded, the briefest acknowledgment of another part of their shared history, when Louisa alone had helped him pick up the pieces of a life that had seemed irreparably damaged. But he had no desire to dwell on that past, and he knew she wouldn’t want to either.

“So, I take it we can draw a line under all of this now?”

“We don’t want you back, if that’s what you mean, but no, you shouldn’t be bothered again.”

Finn smiled and said, “I’ve quite enjoyed parts of the last few days, but trust me, Louisa, I wouldn’t come back. Besides, I have a book to write.”

She faced forward, looking content with the way things had panned out, and they continued in silence for a while. After a few minutes, without looking at him, she spoke again.

“There is one last thing you could explain to me, Finn.”

“If I can.”

“Not about Sparrowhawk as such, more . . .” She looked at him and said, “Jerry de Borg.”

“Is Harry Simons dead?”

“Of course he is! That’s the second time you’ve asked me that.”

“I know, because Jerry de Borg was mentioned on Gibson’s network, and only Harry could have leaked that name.”

“Harry’s dead.” She stared at him for a second or two. “But he didn’t die that night on the dock. He lived another couple of days. At one point we thought he might even pull through.”

Finn felt a searing anger. “So why wasn’t I told?”

“Oh, do be sensible.” She paused for a moment. “He was conscious for a while, so lucid I was convinced he’d recover. Perry was there, and Perry told him that you’d betrayed him, that you’d been working with Karasek. Harry wouldn’t have it. He was adamant. Perry told him it couldn’t have been anyone else and Harry shook his head and said, ‘It was Jerry de Borg.’ Those were the last words he spoke—to us, anyway.”

Finn smiled, his throat tightening with emotion.

He imagined Harry saying it, and laughed at the wild goose chase he’d sent them on. “Imperative to identify Jerry de Borg.”

“Who is he, Finn?”

“He’s nobody. It’s a joke.” She looked more confused than he’d ever seen her. “Look, I went home one weekend for an old friend’s wedding. I sat next to a guy called Jerry de Borg—nice guy, in a band, beautiful girlfriend, we had some laughs. When I got back I was telling Harry about this guy and he says, ‘Jerry de Borg sounds like someone in a spy novel.’ After that it became a running joke, if anything went wrong, if anything happened that we couldn’t make sense of . . .”

“It was Jerry de Borg!”

“Exactly. If you’d asked me six years ago, I would’ve told you.”

Louisa nodded, deep in thought for a while before saying, “Well, that’s one more thing we can cross off the list. And I can’t say for sure, but I think we might have had an innocent musician under surveillance for the last six years.”

She looked at him and smiled. She was joking—or at least, he thought she was.

And a mystery of his own was solved, too. He realized a part of him had relished the thought that he’d meet Harry again, even if he’d been recast as an adversary. But there was no mystery there, and no way back to that past.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Finn had them drop him along the street from the Frosts’ apartment building.

He climbed out, and as he waited for Jim to get his bag, he leaned back into the car and said, “By the way, thanks, for helping me yesterday.”

She smiled. “No, thank you, Finn. For the second time, it seems our disparate interests have dovetailed rather nicely.”

“I’m sure they did, hopefully for the last time.”

“Oh, you never know. Remember what I said, Finn—one of these days you and I will sit down and have a proper conversation.”

“You don’t want me back, so I’m not sure what we’d have to talk about.” He waited a beat and added, “Or are you writing a book, too?”

She laughed, but he didn’t wait for a response, just took the bag from Jim and set off along the street.

When he got to the apartment it was Sam Frost who opened the door. He stared at Finn for a moment as if he didn’t recognize him, then said, “Finn, sorry, come in. Come through to the living room.”

Finn left his bag in the hallway and followed him through. Maria was there, and a woman he presumed was her mother, looking through some brochures.

Maria looked up and said, “Hello, Finn.”

“Hello.” He waited to be introduced to the older woman, but it seemed to slip everyone’s mind.

Maria said, “One never expects to plan a child’s funeral.”

“No.”

The older woman stood and said, “I’m making coffee—would you like some?”

“No, thank you, I won’t be staying.” She nodded and left the room.

Sam said, “Please, sit down.”

“No, I won’t. As I said, I can’t stay. I just wanted to tell you, it’s done.”

“Oh God,” said Sam, a mixture of emotions playing out across his face.

Maria only looked up and asked, “Did they suffer?”

“Not as much as you, and I don’t expect it to provide much solace, but I feel better for knowing those people aren’t in the world anymore. I just wish . . .” He ground to a halt, seeing the pointlessness of it all.

Maria said, “We’d like you to come to the funeral, if you would like to.”

“I’d like that very much. Take care.” He turned, and Sam took that as his cue to show him back to the door.

Finn picked his bag up, but then Hailey emerged around the corner of the L-shaped hall.

“I thought I heard your voice! How . . . I mean . . .”

“It’s done,” said Sam, repeating Finn’s words.

Hailey nodded. She looked unsure whether to kiss him on the cheek or hug him, a new shyness and uncertainty around him that had emerged in the days he’d been away. He was glad of that.

“Good,” she said. Then, as if explaining her presence, she said, “I came over to spend some time with Alice—just because, you know . . .”

Sam said, “She’s been a great help.”

As they spoke, Alice herself came around the corner but kept her distance. As with her brother, the two unremarkable parents had produced a child of striking beauty. She smiled awkwardly at him, then turned and disappeared again.

Finn said his goodbyes, and found a cab to take him home. And as he got there, he saw Grasset standing outside, as he had been a couple of weeks before, admiring what felt like a summer morning.

“Bonjour, Monsieur Harrington.”

“Bonjour, Monsieur Grasset. Another beautiful day.”

“It is beautiful.” Finn was ready to walk past him, but Grasset said, “Monsieur Harrington, your wife, she came back. Yesterday.”

Finn felt a weight sliding away from him, a relief that was almost frightening. He couldn’t help but smile, yet he still managed to say, “She isn’t my wife.”

“
Oui
,
mais
,
er . . .”

Finn went in and pressed for the elevator, then went up the stairs rather than wait for it. He heard a voice as soon as he opened the door, and walked into the kitchen to find Adrienne sitting talking to Debbie, coffee cups in front of them.

“Hello.”

Debbie jumped up and said, “Oh my goodness, I’ll leave you two alone.”

Adrienne looked up and smiled at Finn, a smile that was still measured. “You don’t have to leave, Debbie.”

Debbie laughed nervously and said, “Oh, but I do.” Then she looked at Finn. “Hailey went back to school today. I know you said about being vigilant, but she was insistent, and . . .”

He was impressed, and wasn’t sure why, that Hailey was maintaining her secretive habits. Certainly, he wasn’t about to reveal her deception by telling Debbie she wasn’t at school.

“That’s good. She’s safe now, anyway.”

“It’s taken care of?” He nodded and she mouthed a silent
thank you
to him.

Adrienne stood, and gave Debbie a brief hug before she left. She turned to Finn then and kissed him on both cheeks, but offered no hug.

“We need to talk,” she said.

“Okay.” He sat in the chair vacated by Debbie. Adrienne sat down again. She looked more beautiful than he’d ever seen her, a glow about her that was probably nothing more than the glow of enforced separation. She looked a little more curvy, too—the healthiness of the diet in her brother’s house. “Are you back?”

“I don’t know.” She frowned, and then gave a little noncommittal smile. “I want to be. I’ve missed you, and yes, the last few days have been . . . a revelation. But things have to change, Finn. Most of all, I need you to be completely open with me, completely honest.”

“Things will change. And I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“Were you a spy?”

That was clever, starting with something they’d already covered.

“For want of a better word, yes. I left six years ago, and I can’t talk about a lot of what I did.”

“Did you ever kill anybody?”

He was surprised by the question. Unless Adrienne was bluffing him, Debbie hadn’t mentioned what had happened in their apartment. He’d have to let her know that it was okay to tell Adrienne—in his experience, most people needed one confidante.

“I killed two people, one of them by accident, one of them . . . ” He stopped. He would have to tell her about Sofi in time, but not now, not yet. “That was years ago, but in the last week I’ve killed four more.”

Her mouth fell open.

“You’ve killed four people this week!”

He nodded, surprised at how lightly he carried those deaths, certainly more lightly than Sofi’s, or even the guy in the church.

“Two of them were the people who killed Jonas, and one of those was trying to kill Hailey when I intercepted him—I killed him in their apartment.”

Adrienne looked more shocked by that revelation. “But Debbie didn’t say anything . . .”

“I told them to forget about it, not to tell anyone. I also killed the two people who ordered Jonas’s death and who would never have left me alone if I hadn’t killed them.”

As if it was the one revelation she hadn’t expected, she said, “You’re a killer.”

“Hardly. I’ve killed people, that’s not the same.”

“Would you kill again?”

“If I had to, and so would you. It’s what we do to protect ourselves and the people we care about.” She smiled, finding something worthwhile in that comment. “There’s something else I need to tell you, about my past—”

As if trying to head him off at the pass, or perhaps because his previous comment had rendered her incapable of keeping quiet, she said, “I’m pregnant.” He became immediately concerned about his face, fearing that he could not make the expected expression fight its way through the shock. This was why she looked so good, so curvy, so fecund—it was obvious to him now. He tried to speak, but she said urgently, “I’m having it, so don’t even think about it.”

He was taken over by a different kind of shock, and said, “What makes you think I would wanna get rid of it?”

“You kept saying you didn’t want a family.”

“Yet! All men say that, and . . . I had other reasons, but . . . How long have you known?”

“The last time we spoke, when you were in Béziers. I tried to tell you, but I didn’t get the opportunity.” He shook his head, already ashamed of the persona he’d maintained and even become in the last six years. Then, as if to drive home that the change would not be as immediate as he imagined, she said, “I thought you might have noticed at Mathieu’s, that I drank no wine.”

Her hands were clasped on the table and he reached across, separating them, holding them, feeling the warm smoothness of her skin.

“I’m amazed you’ve stayed with me these last four years, but I’m glad you did, Adrienne, because I love you and I want us to be married, and the thought of having a child with you is . . . it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

She smiled and squeezed his hands, but then the smile straightened out again and she said, “What did you want to tell me about your past?”

Finn nodded, accepting that it was the one thing he had to tell her, that there could be no future together unless he did tell her.

“Okay. It’s about my old job, the reason I thought it would come back to haunt me. See, I was corrupt. I used my contacts and my position to forward the business interests of someone I befriended in the course of my work. All these years, I thought my former superiors knew nothing about it, but they knew all along. The person I worked with—and I worked with him, not for him—was Aleksandr Naumenko.”

“Aleksandr Naumenko? The oligarch? The multibillionaire? You’re friends with Aleksandr Naumenko?”

“Well, kind of. I saw him last week, but before that I hadn’t seen him in three years, maybe four.” He didn’t wait for her consternation to subside, but carried on, saying, “The business was incredibly lucrative and I made a lot of money. I mean a
lot
of money.”

Now she looked baffled. “What happened to it? We live okay, yeah, you make good profits from your books and I have my own money, but . . .”

“I’m being open, remember.” She looked expectant. “For six years I haven’t touched it. Like I said, I thought it would all come
back to haunt me. As of today, I found out that it won’t. The money’s
been sitting in a numbered account here in Switzerland for all that time. It’s actually the main reason I moved here.”

“Even though you’ve never touched it.” He nodded. “How much?”

“Give or take, a hundred and eighty million dollars.”

She stared at him and laughed involuntarily, stopped herself, then laughed again. Finn laughed, too, as if for the first time he’d realized how extraordinary it was, how it summed up the desiccation of his life that he had been able to sit on that fortune all this time.

She found a frown and said, “This doesn’t change anything.” He shook his head, accepting the point. “But it means we can move, right?”

“Anywhere you like.”

She offered him another smile, seductive, as she said, “So . . . how about we move into the bedroom? It’s traditional, no, after a separation?”

“It is, yeah, and I’d love to—but, you know, I do have a book to write.”

He kept a straight face long enough to leave her doubting for a moment.

Then she saw through it and said, “So you should get to work.”

“I will.”

Slowly, he stood, but he continued to hold on to her hands, bringing her to her feet. He kissed her, but she pulled back a little, curious again as she said, “A hundred and eighty million dollars? What did you do to make—”

He put his finger to her lips and said, “All in good time.”

She weighed up his response and, to his surprise, nodded and smiled. It was true, there were other things he needed to tell her, so many other things, but they could wait, at least for a little while, at least until she came to know him for who he hoped he really was.