Song of the Dead

Book 1: DI Westphall

by Douglas Lindsay

Genres: Police Procedurals

Synopsis

Book 1 in the DI Westphall series.

A dead man walks into a police station. He tells a tale — bizarre as it is grotesque — of kidnap and organ harvesting. John Baden's story of being held prisoner for 12 years sounds far-fetched — but it's all about to get much, much stranger.

DI Ben Westphall has been given the case because of his background in MI6. He also has a knack for getting inside people's heads and seeing things others would miss. Westphall is no ordinary detective, and this is no ordinary case.

When his suspects start dying, Westphall realises someone is killing to cover up the truth. But what exactly is the truth? To find out, he'll have to question everything he's been told, before there's no one left to ask.

Release date: February 7, 2019

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 352

Sample

Chapter 1

Friday afternoon. Standing in a queue at the supermarket, staring at the floor, the basket weighing heavily in my right hand. Dinner, milk, wine, water, orange juice.

I’ve chosen the wrong queue again. We don’t always choose the wrong queue, we just never notice choosing the right one. Glance at the old woman fumbling with change, counting the coins out slowly, as though she’s still converting from pounds, shillings and pence. There’s another younger woman behind her. Looking at her phone.

Almost dark already. Too late to go for a drive. Tomorrow maybe. I can head off, then get out the car, walk some way up a hill. Nothing major. Nothing that requires a backpack. Up Strathconon, stop long before the end. Sit on the grass, watching the day crawl over the land, the deer mingling at the foot of the hill.

My phone rings. Much too loud. Set on full volume to make sure I never miss it. The three women beside me all glance disapprovingly. Their censure vanishes as I press the green button and put the phone to my ear.

‘Need you back in here, sorry.’

It doesn’t matter who says it, does it? The voice from the station: that weekend that you were about to start enjoying is going to have to wait. My plans hadn’t amounted to much anyway.

I contemplate risking the wrath of someone anonymous at the supermarket by placing my basket on the floor and walking out, but instead I take a minute to walk round, putting my dinner and the drinks back on the appropriate shelves.

 

Five minutes and I’m closing the door behind me and sitting down in front of Chief Inspector Quinn. He’s on the phone, but he waved me in. He’s writing as he listens. When he’s finished, he thanks the person he’s talking to and hangs up.

‘Need you to go to Tallinn,’ he says.

He looks across the desk. Humourless. Good at his job, respected. But totally humourless. Which means he isn’t joking.

‘Estonia?’

As opposed to where, I wonder, as soon as I’ve asked the question. Maybe there’s a Tallinn, Idaho or a Tallinn, North Dakota.

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t . . .’

‘You’re booked on the eight-thirty Gothenburg ferry from Aberdeen, so you’ll need to get going. Train from there to Stockholm, overnight ferry Stockholm to Tallinn, gets you to Estonia, more or less, for start of play Monday morning.’

He looks at his watch.

‘Sorry, Ben, but you’re the best man for the job, given your background. They’re not intending to do anything with it over the weekend, so Monday should be fine.’

‘What’s up?’

‘There was a case twelve years ago, before your time. It was news around here, but wasn’t too big nationally. A young couple went out to the Baltics, aiming to tour around. The chap, John Baden, went missing in Estonia. In the south, in a place called Tartu. It was in the papers for a few days. Then his body washed up on the shores of the lake that forms much of the border between Estonia and Russia.’

‘Murdered?’

He pushes a file across the desk.

‘Read it on the ferry.’

‘Was there anyone here who went out there at the time?’

‘Rosco.’

I nod, lean forward and lift the file. We don’t talk about Rosco.

‘So, there’s a new lead? That’s why they want someone to go out?’

No dramatic pause. The Chief doesn’t do drama, just as he doesn’t do humour.

‘John Baden, or someone claiming to be him, walked into a police station in Tartu this morning.’

Just as the boss doesn’t do drama, he doesn’t like to see his officers overreact. I remain expressionless. It was going to be something interesting, or else they wouldn’t be sending anyone out there.

‘The Embassy are involved?’

‘Of course.’

‘Is there anyone working there who remembers the case?’

‘Doesn’t appear to be.’

‘They’ve spoken to the Estonians?’

‘Everyone’s on board. Baden’s been taken to a military hospital. They’re going to keep him there over the weekend, try to get to the bottom of it on Monday. You should arrive just in time.’

‘And his partner from twelve years ago? Has she been notified?’

‘We’re trying to find her. However, at the moment we just want to know where she is and what she’s doing. We’re not telling her yet. Presumably . . . presumably this isn’t him. Look at the file. He was dead, his body was identified by at least three different people. This was an open-and-shut case.’

‘Except someone just opened it again.’

‘Yes.’ He nods towards the door. ‘You’ve just got a passenger booking, no need to take your car over. Mary’s got the details.’

I lift the folder, and get up. ‘You’ll let me know if you find out where the partner is?’

‘Of course.’

I walk from the office, closing the door on my way. I’m glad I’ve got nothing to cancel this weekend, but I’d be lying if I said that there’s anything I’d likely be doing that was going to be more interesting than this.

I go back to my office, lift my watch off the desk, and am strapping it onto my wrist as I get to Mary on my way out. She’s ready for me and holds out a few pieces of paper, clipped together, as I approach.

‘Have a safe trip,’ she says.

‘When am I coming back?’

‘Open booking,’ she says.

I nod and walk out the station.

Chapter 10

My first year on the job, first year in Dingwall, we had one of those cases that all police officers hate: the missing teenager. Teenagers go missing every day of course. They stay out, they come back a couple of days later; they run off, they never come back. The parents come to the police, and what can we do? Sometimes, they won’t even come to the police, because they don’t want the police to know the reason why their child ran off in the first place. You make a judgement every time, as soon as the missing person is reported. Sit tight and wait for them to crawl back from the pub; talk with the parents and establish why exactly their child might currently be sitting on the bus to London; or face the music, the instant knowledge that something’s happened. Go to the press, let them know, hope they buy into it, because on this occasion you need their help.

Now, just because you’re asking the media for help doesn’t mean you have to have even the slightest respect for them. The media are like cats. They do what they want, when they want. They might give you the impression that they’re on your side occasionally, that you have some element of control over them, but in reality, you’re nothing to them other than dinner. The media will help the police if and when it suits them.

I think that time, back in Dingwall, was a slow news cycle. The usual calamities overseas, but nothing much happening in Scotland. Added to that, however, was that the missing teenager was seventeen, female and attractive.

If you believed nothing but the newspapers you’d think the vast majority of people who go missing in Britain are good-looking teenage girls. The reality, of course, which we all know, is that those are the ones the editors want because those are the ones the public likes to hear about.

Our girl, Abby, fit the bill. And I knew right from the off. She hadn’t run away, she wasn’t still draped over the end of the bar in the Ceilidh Place in Ullapool. Felt it in the first hour. Walked into the house to talk to the mum, dad and younger brother, and I could feel the crushing weight of sadness.

Not from the family though. They weren’t sad. Not yet. They were still at the panicking stage. Panic and fear, coupled with some sense that by reacting this way, hopefully it would turn out to be unnecessary, that at any minute their daughter would be walking in the front door, and they could be relieved and laugh about it and apologise to the police.

The crushing weight of sadness came from Abby herself. I could feel it everywhere. She was still in the house. Some part of her, at least, was still in the house. And if she wasn’t physically there, then it meant she was dead, and her spirit had come home to be with her family. To mourn her own passing.

I got no more than that. I couldn’t ask her what had happened or where we might find her body. I couldn’t physically see her. It was just the sense of her, so strong that I was surprised that no one else could feel it. I didn’t ask, of course, but I could tell. No one else looked like I felt. The family were still that stressed, horrible, jumble of dread and hope.

We identified the killer shortly afterwards, and I mean, twenty minutes afterwards. Identifying usually doesn’t take long. Building a case is where the time goes.

She’d had one boyfriend in her life; they had split up three months previously. Her decision. I went round to talk to him. He’d already shut down. He had to expect that the police would be at his door as soon as she was reported missing. He’d been dumped, and no matter how amicable the parents made it sound – and not for a second did they implicate him, as the only time they sounded upset with Abby was at the thought of her ending her relationship with this kid they were very fond of – that’s your motive right there.

Some seventeen-year-olds might be capable of the cool lie. Not many, I wouldn’t think, but some will be. The ones who are true sociopaths. Everyone else though is going to give themselves away, and the only way to avoid doing that is to shut down. Completely.

The boyfriend could barely speak. He looked me in the eye, but his eyes were dead. He gave nothing away, except that he gave everything away. He didn’t look like he was in shock, he looked like he was trying not to talk.

There was no satisfactory conclusion, on any level. We found Abby’s body in a small burn beyond Evanton. Not concealed particularly well. Bruises on her arms, bruises on her legs. She’d been raped and strangled. We can’t say what the boyfriend had been thinking because he never admitted it. He stayed shut down. Never spoke in court, never answered a single question. We had the evidence from her body. We had DNA. We had fingerprints. We had the e-mails he’d been sending her. There was no question.

The last time I was in Abby’s house the place was enveloped in sadness, but now it was everyone, and it was everywhere. So much grief, it was hard to tell if she was still there, seeking solace with her family, bereft.

That’s what the rest of their time on earth will be. A time of mourning. Their daughter is dead, and their lives will never be the same. I see these people around town today sometimes, seven years later. They haven’t recovered now, and they never will.

Chapter 11

Standing on deck as the ferry moves slowly past the Estonian coast towards the Bay of Tallinn. Kuusk beside me, a cigarette in his right hand. We’re in the No Smoking section, but no one seems to care.

Low, grey cloud. Moisture in the air, but not raining. Bitingly cold. I don’t have the clothes for this weather. One of the consequences of packing in haste. I thought, we’re pretty far north in Dingwall, Tallinn probably won’t be too much different. Apart from being a couple of hundred miles out, it was a stupid assumption anyway, Britain being warmer in November than just about everywhere of equivalent latitude on the continental masses.

Wearing a short blue jacket, three layers underneath, hands thrust in pockets, suitcase on the deck beside me.

The great white hulls of the ferries in dock are the first we see of Tallinn, and then the few towers and spires emerge from the murk.

‘Bad day, or is it always like this?’ I ask.

Kuusk smiles, takes a final puff of the smoke and then flicks it over the side.

‘It’s November. The most miserable month. Days are short, weather is cold and wet. The suicide rate soars. Everyone is sad.’

‘You’re talking it up.’

‘It’s better when the snow comes. Sometime in December through to April, there’ll be snow on the ground. The place looks a little better. At least in the parks and on the roofs. Not so much on the roads. They just get to looking dirtier. Dirty snow is as depressing as this.’

The boat has turned, and suddenly the port is appearing quickly out of the gloom.

‘So, what’s with you?’ he asks. ‘You’re a tough one to fathom.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘I’ve read the stories. All these maverick British cops. They all have something. Drugs, alcohol, women . . . What’s with you?’

‘I don’t think I’m a maverick. I’m just a guy.’

‘You don’t drink?’

‘Wine. A little bit. Can quite happily go a week without it.’

‘Drugs?’

‘Never.’

‘Women?’

Shrug.

‘Last one was pretty awful, so I’ve steered clear for a while. Someone’ll come along eventually, I expect. Most women I meet seem to be married with kids.’

‘Sometimes they’re the most fun.’

I smile. He’s probably right. Think of Mary, sitting behind her desk back in Dingwall.

‘You must have something,’ he says, persisting.

‘Sometimes I play chess on my iPad.’

‘Ah, chess genius.’

‘I play on the third level out of ten.’

He takes another cigarette from the packet, contemplates it as though he might decide not to light it, and then puts it in his mouth and cups his hands around the lighted match.

‘You have a tortured back story?’ he asks, after his first long draw.

‘No.’

‘Abused childhood?’

‘No.’

‘You like music, maybe? Opera? Your lot usually like opera, that kind of thing. You know, so you can drive to a murder scene listening to the “Flower Duet” from Lakmé.’

‘I think you’ve been watching too much TV.’

‘You must like music. Everyone likes music.’

‘I like lots of music.’

‘Name someone you like?’

I could say Dylan or Sinatra or the Beatles or Ella Fitzgerald, but I don’t want to sound like everyone else.

‘Turin Brakes,’ I say.

‘I don’t know them. They’re a band?’

‘Yes.’

Another puff.

‘I don’t know them,’ he says again.

‘I can let you hear some on my iPod.’

‘Cool. What did you do before?’

‘You mean my last case?’

‘No. Before you joined the police.’

I wonder about asking him some questions, but somehow it would seem disinterested. Only doing it because he was asking it of me.

‘Security services.’

No harm in saying. Not now. Been so long. And the security services don’t care. They more or less have photographs of their staff on their website nowadays.

‘MI6?’

‘Yes.’

He nods, the smoke breathed out through his smile.

‘I knew it. A spy. You must have seen bad stuff.’

Shrug.

‘Some,’ I say.

‘Traumatised.’

‘I don’t think I am, but if it makes you happy for me to be, then you can have it. At least it’s something. Pretty boring otherwise.’

He nods. He leans forward on the railing, takes another puff and then flicks the half-smoked cigarette into the sea.

‘I didn’t need that one,’ he says.

 

John Baden has spent the weekend in a military hospital to the east of the city. We go straight there. Kuusk asks if I want to check into my hotel first, but as it’s not much after ten in the morning, there’s nothing I would do when I got there. I sling my bag in the boot of his car, and off we go.

We drive round the sweep of the bay, the ferries behind us, along the path of the promenade towards and past the marina.

‘Must be nice in the summer,’ I venture at some point.

Kuusk doesn’t respond. Lost in thought, or nothing to say. Any place by the sea that isn’t nice in the summer must be making a positive effort not to be.

 

Baden is sitting at a table in white hospital clothes. He has a cup of coffee and a packet of cigarettes. The air in the room is smoky. A window is open slightly, letting in something of the bleakness of the morning. He looks thin, distant, detached. If his story is true – and even suggesting that it might be sounds false, because how can it be – then he’s going to get to the part where it all becomes too much for him and he has to completely withdraw.

Perhaps someone made him believe he was John Baden, that brainwashing was part of the process of captivity. Why anyone would do that, of course, adds another layer of questions thicker than the meagre explanation that spawned them in the first place.

Face drawn, eyes faraway, cigarette in right hand, hand shaking slightly. Left hand firmly clutching an empty cup.

‘Can I get you another coffee?’ I ask.

A moment, and then he looks at me, looks at his cup.

‘You’re the one from Scotland?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can’t place your accent.’

‘I just work there.’

I don’t help him out. Getting no sixth sense with this guy. Nothing there to latch on to.

‘Who’s top of the league?’ he asks, when I don’t reply.

Well, there’s a question. Safe, neutral, natural.

‘I’m sure one of the Estonians could have told you who was top of the Scottish league. At least, they could have found out for you.’

There’s a nurse, maybe a kind of security nurse, standing in the corner. She reminds me of Rosa Klebb, which must be some sort of appalling racist profiling on my part. But she does. I wouldn’t leave anywhere that she didn’t want me to leave.

‘I didn’t think of it until now,’ he says.

‘Celtic.’

He nods.

‘Rangers went out of business,’ I add.

That, at least, brings a flicker.

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Went under. Got demoted to League Two. Division Three as it was back in your day.’

‘Shit,’ he says.

Holds my gaze for a second, then lowers his eyes. He’s a typical football supporter from Dingwall. Not interested in Ross County. I think of telling him about County’s time in the Premier League, and then decide not to.

‘I’ll get the coffee,’ I say.

‘Could I have a cup of tea?’

Staring at the floor as he asks.

‘I mean, a proper cup of tea. British. Not the stuff they drink here.’

 

Check the time. Have been in here just over twenty minutes. My coffee finished, bar the dregs. Baden drank his tea in five minutes. Found a guard with some Tetley lurking in his cupboard, two years out of date.

How does tea go out of date? Do they put these overly prescriptive use-by dates on food in fear of the health and safety brigade or because they want you buying their product more frequently than you would otherwise need to? They want the turnover that’s at odds with food sitting in your cupboard and fridge.

We’re not saying much. There’s no rush. He’s been gone twelve years, no hurry now. I wasn’t dispatched with any instruction to get things sorted out and be back in time for Wednesday morning round-up.

‘What was your favourite book?’

He glances at me, looks away again.

‘You said you were given old books to read. Which was your favourite?’

Pause. Come on, now, that one’s not too hard.

‘Pride and Prejudice,’ he says. ‘That’s kind of stupid, isn’t it?’

‘Everyone likes Pride and Prejudice.’

Another silence. His eyes look off to the side, but there’s something there.

‘How did the wars go?’ he asks, his voice soft, the words placed gently into the room.

‘Which wars?’

‘Afghanistan. Iraq.’

They would just have started when he went missing. And was found dead. Keep having to remind myself of that fact, so natural does it seem sitting here, with someone saying they’ve been out of touch all this time.

‘Not great,’ I say. ‘We tried ending the Iraq one and it just came back. Afghanistan, not so different. Anyway, there are other wars now. Lots of wars. The Pope called it World War Three by stealth.’

He doesn’t ask where. He lifts his cup, which he hasn’t done in the fifteen minutes since he finished it. Looks inside, places it back on the table. Not the time to ask him if he wants another.

‘We need to talk about Emily,’ I say.

Nothing on his face. He’s staring at an indistinct point on the floor.

‘We need to talk about Emily.’

‘I know. I find it hard to think about her.’

‘Why?’

Slight movement of the jawline, teeth pressed together.

‘There’s too much.’

‘Too much what?’

‘Too much to think about. I can’t go there. Can’t think about what’s happened to me, and put Emily in the same story. She’s not part of it any more. She’s not part of my life any more, even if I want her to be, even if by some miracle she’s still out there, wanting me to be.’

‘How long were you together?’

‘From day one of university. Stood in the lunch queue together and bang. Four years at Aberdeen, then three years living in Marybank. Every morning having breakfast, looking up at Wyvis. Thinking it was ours. The mountain was ours.’

Pause.

‘Then we came here.’

‘Whose idea was it?’

‘Emily’s. She’d been talking about it for a while. Trying to get me to take a break.’

‘Why the Baltics?’

‘She loved the idea of it. Neither of us really wanted a beach or the sun.’

‘You think she was involved in you being taken?’

Furrowed brow, he looks at me. Shakes his head.

‘No.’

‘You haven’t asked whether she was ever taken. Why haven’t you asked that? Did you not presume she was grabbed at the same time?’

His face relaxes, he looks away and again loses himself in the indistinct spot.

‘I did for a while. Assumed I’d be seeing her. Never did. Over time . . . I don’t know, I thought everything there is to think. I asked myself if she was involved, just as you did. But I couldn’t believe it. I don’t know how long I considered that, but I never believed it. And the thought that she was being held like me . . . Maybe she was. Maybe she is. Maybe she was in the next room all the time.’

He looks up, some sort of spark starting to come.

‘She was never taken?’

‘No.’

‘You’ve spoken to her?’

I shake my head.

‘I headed out here as soon as they brought you in. I haven’t spoken to home yet. They hadn’t located her when I left, but they might have by now. Certainly, twelve years ago, she spent . . . she looked for you. She was questioned, and no one thought she had anything to do with your disappearance.’

‘You hesitated.’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ll tell you later.’

Don’t let them start asking the questions. Also worth noting, don’t hesitate at the wrong moment.

‘Why are you only just getting here then?’ he asks. ‘Did you take a boat?’

‘Two boats. And a train.’

Chapter 12

Mid-afternoon. Tired. Travelling will do that, regardless of whether there are any time zones and regardless of how much sleep you’ve had. We’re headed back towards town, back to Kuusk’s HQ, but I get him to stop along the bay, so that we can take in some fresh air for a while. Just after three o’clock, already getting dark. Two hours ahead, so UK time I’d just be about to have lunch. I’m not normally tired at one in the afternoon.

Biting cold, but it’s waking me up. The air has cleared a little, and the wind is still coming in off the water. The sky is the same flat grey. The cold is the kind that it’s hard to imagine any amount of clothing protecting you from. Piercing, slicing. You feel it deep inside, like someone is pouring ice water into your veins.

The sea is calm. I’ve barely seen a wave since leaving Aberdeen. To the left, the port. The bay sweeps away to the right. On the horizon there’s a large, low-lying island, barely visible. Everything is grey, making it hard to tell the difference between sea, land and sky.

‘We need to try to get him to find where he was held.’

‘Of course.’

‘You have any ideas, from what he said, where to start?’

‘We know roughly where to start, yes. I don’t hold out much hope, but we will try. Tomorrow, naturally, when there is daylight.’

‘If you can call it daylight.’

He laughs. He pulls his coat in a little tighter. He seems no better dressed for the weather than I am. He probably wasn’t expecting that I’d suggest a walk along the promenade. Looking along the length of it, as far as we can see in either direction, there is one woman walking a dog, and that’s it.

‘I need to buy a coat,’ I say. ‘Let’s go back to HQ, speak to your boss. I’ll call home. Maybe they’ve found Emily. I don’t know how much use it would be if she turned up here. You know, if she didn’t run a mile first.’

‘She might know if it’s him.’

‘Yes, there’s that,’ I say, but the idea of that moment, of her walking into the room to see him, feels so bad, so uncomfortably wrong, that I don’t want to think about it.

‘So, we can go back to the car now?’ he asks.

‘Yes.’

‘Thank God.’

 

Standing at an office window, fourth floor, looking down on the back of a bleak portside scene. Bare trees to the left, a car park, the back of probably empty warehouses and a view through to an unused dockside. Between here and there a small area of redevelopment, a pedestrian and cycling track, which might look all right in summer, but not so much on a grim November’s day.

Have been looking at it for five minutes when the door opens, and I turn to see Kuusk following his boss into the office. Superintendent Stepulov. Again, she seems young for her position. Long dark hair hanging loose, dark-rimmed spectacles. Slimmer even than Kuusk, and I’d already regarded him with some resentment.

She smiles briefly, shakes my hand.

‘Glad you got here safely. You have a problem with flying?’

I’m not getting into it. Never felt the need to justify myself before, so answer with a slight movement of the shoulders.

She takes a seat behind her desk. Top floor in the offices of the Central Criminal Police. View of the old port area and out over the sea, but not attached to the port. The office is large and sparsely furnished. A lot of dead space. Perhaps she has meetings in here. In the UK this would be an open-plan office for about fifteen. I decide the Estonians must still be at the stage where government and the services are expanding, before they hit the part where they have to start shedding people, buildings and other assets by the hundredweight.

When was the peak of the British government and civil service? I wonder, but never think of the question when I’m next to a computer. 1914 probably. Thereabouts. The height of Empire. Been downsizing ever since, with no end in sight. Eventually there’ll be a few people working in Whitehall calling themselves the government, while the country is run by enormous, corrupt corporations. It’ll be the East India Company in reverse.

‘I’ve had a long chat with Chief Inspector Quinn. I don’t think he believes you ought to be out here for an extended period. Hopefully we should get this wrapped up very quickly.’

She has a certain tone about her, but I’ve been warned by Kuusk. She takes a while to warm up and doesn’t do small talk. She gets to the point. ‘Almost as though she’s Estonian rather than Russian.’ That’s how he put it.

Regardless of whether this is just the way she is, or if there is any real resentment about my being in the country, as her tone suggests, I’ll be giving Quinn a call as soon as we’re through here.

Kuusk, for his part, seems to be modelling himself on American movies.

‘Have they found Emily King?’

‘So far, no.’

‘They know where she is and can’t get hold of her, or they—’

‘They appear to be having difficulty locating her. You should speak to your Chief Inspector when we’re done. I believe Detective Kuusk wants to go with you and the supposed victim to try to identify the area where he says he was held?’

‘You’re sceptical then? About this man claiming to be Baden?’

‘Of course, Detective Inspector. I was a junior officer when the case had its previous incarnation. John Baden’s body was found, it was identified. There was no question. He was dead. So, how can this man be him? I have seen his dead body. So the question you need to be asking is not, is this man John Baden? It is how does he come to think he is John Baden, or why is he pretending?’

‘For the moment, and until proven otherwise, I won’t be taking any questions off the table.’

She smiles, which is surprising.

‘Of course. You must tackle this as you see fit. Will you be taking Mr Baden back to the UK?’

Genuinely hadn’t thought of that. Much too soon. The length of time I think I’m going to be here seems to differ greatly from her expectations.

‘Too early to say.’

‘Very well. Inspector Kuusk can keep me informed as you go.’

A last look, then she lowers her eyes to her paperwork. The international sign of the dismissal. Not quite ready to go yet, however.

‘Regardless of who he thinks or says he is, there’s clear evidence that this man has been abused, that his body has been used. Regardless of the historical aspect of the case, you surely must be wanting to investigate the possibility of a group of people, whoever they are, holding prisoners in the forest.’

Her lowered head remains steady. I wait for the glance, the rebuke, the sharp tone telling me it’s none of my business. Perhaps she and Kuusk have already had the conversation.

Nothing. I glance round at Kuusk and he indicates with a slight eye movement that it’s time to go.

 

Another office window, but now it’s completely dark outside and all I’m looking at is my own reflection. Talking Quinn through how I found our man to be.

‘Are you convinced?’ he asks.

‘Much too early to be making any judgement calls. He seems genuine, that’s all. But it could just