The Trinity Six - Charles Cumming [42]
‘I wonder if I might join you on your walk?’ he said. Grek spoke a precise, formal English, but it was a coat of varnish on an utter ruthlessness. ‘You are walking home, are you not? This is the route that you always take?’
Somers felt the panic again, the charge in his chest, and knew that he had been rumbled. Why else had Grek come for him? They must have found out about the academic and Charlotte Berg. Why had he been so greedy? The FSB had paid him twenty grand for the Crane story, for the tale of Douglas Henderson and St Mary’s Hospital. There had been one condition to that transaction: that he never again speak to anyone about Edward Anthony Crane. But since then he’d been paid twice for the same information; he just hadn’t been able to help himself. And now Alexander Grek had come to find out why.
‘You’ve been following me,’ he said, but his voice betrayed him, stuttering twice on the word ‘following’.
‘No, no,’ Grek replied, smiling like an old friend. ‘We just have two more questions that we would like you to answer.’ He held up his fingers, splayed like a V for Victory. ‘Two.’
Somers unzipped the fleece. He was suddenly very hot.
‘Why don’t we walk as we talk?’ the Russian suggested, and Somers agreed, not least because he did not want to be seen with Grek by other members of staff. They turned towards the main road, crossed it and joined a narrow, overgrown path into the woods. They were obliged to walk in single file and Somers moved quickly, desperate to reach the open ground of a field. Grek was no more than three metres behind him at any point, but barely made a sound as his five-hundred-dollar loafers caressed the damp path.
‘So what was it you wanted?’ Somers asked, carrying the fleece now because the vest beneath his uniform was soaked with sweat.
Grek came to a halt. They were still on the path, bent trees and summer grasses hemming them in on all sides. Somers had to stop and turn around, pale sunlight filtering through the branches.
‘I wanted to ask you about Waldemar.’
At first, Somers didn’t understand what Grek was asking, because the Russian had pronounced the name of the Polish janitor at St Mary’s with a Slavic expertise that stripped ‘Waldemar’ of recognizable consonants. Then he put two and two together and decided to stall.
‘Waldemar? The porter? What about him?’
‘We cannot find him.’ From his relaxed tone of voice, Grek might have been reporting on the status of nothing more significant than a lost watch. ‘We have had difficulty in tracking this man down.’
Somers laughed. ‘I thought you were meant to be Russian Intelligence? Doesn’t say much for your capabilities, does it? Doesn’t say much for your, er, intelligence?’ It was a mistake, of course, to sound glib, to taunt a man like Grek, but Somers couldn’t help himself. He was always like this when the cards were stacked against him: cocky and sarcastic, fighting fire with fire.
‘Perhaps,’ Grek said, and Somers couldn’t work out what he was referring to. Perhaps what? He experienced a renewed desire to get off the path, because he felt that Grek, at any moment, might throw a punch at him. Calvin Somers had a profound fear of physical violence and knew that he would not be able to defend himself if the Russian attacked. He turned and saw the edge of a field no more than fifty metres away. If only they could keep walking.
‘So you do not know where we can find this Waldemar?’ Grek continued. ‘You have had no contact with him in the intervening period?’
‘In the what?’ Somers was laughing again, choosing to mock Grek’s choice of phrase.
‘You heard me, Calvin.’
To hear his Christian name spoken in such a context was nauseating. To control his fear, Somers turned and began to walk towards the field, praying that Grek would follow him. He did not.
‘What about Benedict Meisner?’ the Russian called after him and Somers