The Old Enemy, Henry Porter [important of reading books txt] 📗

he entered but gestured to the chair Nyman used before, where he let himself down with his customary disregard, causing the whole thing to groan and the cushion to wheeze.

‘New suit?’

‘As a matter of fact, yes,’ Nyman replied. ‘I got it in the sales and have only just come to like it.’

‘I can well understand it took time,’ said Samson with a straight face.

‘Well, I think it works quite well,’ said Nyman. His eyes went to the floor. ‘I don’t suppose you have a drink available? I believe we are both going to need it.’

‘What do you want?’ Samson swung round in his chair and went to a small inlaid drinks cabinet that his father had bought in Istanbul twenty years before. ‘Scotch? Gin? Cognac? We can get the mixers sent up from downstairs.’

‘Brandy – I’ll have it on its own.’

Samson handed him the drink.

‘You will need one, too, Samson.’

‘Too early for me.’

Nyman filled his mouth and held it there with his cheeks slightly inflated before swallowing. ‘Robert Harland was killed this morning, shot dead by an assassin in Estonia. He was alone with his wife at some sort of country retreat, a cabin apparently, and the gunman killed him when he was outside, painting.’ He stopped and took another mouthful. ‘Good painter, Bobby.’

Samson took a moment to respond. He was genuinely shocked. ‘Any idea why he was killed?’

‘There are theories.’

‘Does Macy Harp know? They were friends for over forty years.’

‘Yes, he must do. As you say, they were in our service together for many years. In some ways, they were a vintage generation – end of the Cold War, beginning of the modern era of espionage. Everyone is very upset . . . very troubled. Bobby was a hero to us all, as you know. As intelligence officers go, Bobby was the gold standard. The best.’

‘Gold standard? I don’t remember you being very flattering about him in Tallinn,’ said Samson.

‘Operational tensions – all part of the life we chose.’

‘What are the theories?’

Nyman put his glass down and pulled out a handkerchief to dab his nose then clean his glasses vigorously. ‘The theory is that this is just one of the hits planned against all the survivors of the bridge.’

‘By which you mean?’

‘The people who had anything to do with freeing your friend Anastasia and the death of Adam Crane – their top man, Aleksis Chumak, so, that would be Harland, yourself, Denis Hisami, and your young Syrian friend Touma; in fact, anyone who was on or near the bridge at Narva. That may include your friend Anastasia Hisami, I’m afraid.’

Estonia had been a disaster for Nyman – he had been wrong at every turn and paid for it with his position in SIS, though, somehow, he had managed to hang on to an unspecified but reduced role. Against Harland, Nyman was unimaginative and mediocre, which contributed to Samson’s suspicion that Nyman felt some kind of perverted vindication in reporting Harland’s death. ‘What’s your evidence, Peter?’

‘Chatter. We knew they were mightily put out by what had happened, especially about the money and the release of all the names of far-right activists.’

‘They weren’t activists – they were white supremacists and anti-Semites and all were potential terrorists, Peter. Let’s not sanitise what they stood for. They were genocidal killers in the making.’

‘That’s as maybe, but it doesn’t stop them being extremely annoyed and, well, they want to teach us a lesson and the first part of that lesson was killing one of the most talented spies of the last half-century. They are sending a message. Robert Harland’s death is proof that they can do these things with impunity.’ He took up his glass and studied Samson. ‘You haven’t had any trouble of that sort, have you, Samson?’

He shook his head. ‘Running a restaurant doesn’t expose you to a lot of risk.’

‘But you’re someone who likes risk. It’s no secret that you’ve had a bad run at the tables and are, in consequence, forced to take on menial work to pay off your debts. You know how people will gossip about these things.’

Samson smiled. There had been an episode and he had lost big time – exactly £74,500. But that was a year back, when the ache for Anastasia was much stronger and the pain of losing – the counterintuitive thrill of it – made him forget. He couldn’t say whether he had lost intentionally, whether his subconscious had pushed him to defeat in the high-rolling backgammon games that had been a disaster for his father, too, but he understood that the prospect of selling the restaurant and losing much else besides had made him snap out of this funk. ‘You don’t need to worry about me, Peter, although I know you’ve always had my best interests at heart. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to call Macy. It will be very hard for him.’

Nyman showed no sign of taking the hint, so Samson rose. ‘Oh, I’m forgetting, how rude of me.’ He sat down again and leaned forward. ‘You never come up here without wanting something. What is it?’

‘Harland knew he was in danger and was, in effect, hiding out on that lonely stretch of land where they hunted him down and ended his life. We want to know why. Was he threatened? Did he have intelligence? There is evidence that he was working on something. You were close to him, Samson – in many ways, you were very alike – and it has occurred to our people that you were aware of the danger he faced, and perhaps had some intimation of a threat to yourself, as well as the other survivors of the bridge. We would like to catch these people. We can’t let them think that Britain is so weak that they can continue to murder our citizens at will. We have to put them on trial.’

‘You don’t seem to have had much success with that so far and, anyway, Harland was an Estonian national. He renounced British citizenship. He didn’t like this country; thought it was ludicrous and posturing.’

Nyman