Macy Harp phoned early and told Samson to be at Hendricks Harp by 7.30 a.m. There was a lot they needed to go through that they couldn’t discuss on the phone. He arrived before time and found Macy reading a copy of the Economist. ‘Never seems to be time to catch up,’ he said, dropping the magazine on to his desk. ‘Want coffee?’
Samson nodded slowly. Macy was acting oddly. There was none of the usual affability in his round, red face, and when his eyes met Samson’s there was a rather business-like look in them.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘I’ll tell you in a moment.’ He sat down before buzzing through to the outer office for coffee. ‘So, what did the Security Services want to know?’ he asked.
‘They seemed to know it all. I told them how I tracked Crane through an agency that supplies call girls from France – they knew that. They knew we had got hold of his email address, though they didn’t know Naji Touma helped me with that. They knew the exact amount of money we are trying to trace, though they pretended otherwise, and they didn’t ask me about its destination, which I take to mean they had all the information they required on that. And I have to tell you, Macy, that Nyman dropped into our little chat yesterday afternoon that the client was using Denis Hisami’s plane. So I have a question or two for you. What’s this got to do with Hisami?’
‘But the murder of Crane – what did they say about it?’
Samson hesitated, just to let Macy know that he wanted answers too. ‘They said he had been tortured very badly. They believe that took place at another location because of the mess and the noise. His face was unrecognisable – the exit wound was … well, you can imagine for yourself. They know it was Crane because of the DNA match with the articles in the apartment – clothes, etcetera.’
‘So Crane was living there as Ray Shepherd, a UK citizen born in Guernsey, but in fact we know he was Russian originally, or maybe even Ukrainian.’
‘Correct. They know that too.’
‘So what on earth did they want with you?’
‘Simply to check what we had found out, then, once they understood I was pretty much in the dark about our clients and what their exact motives were, they sent me packing.’
‘And they didn’t try to threaten you by suggesting you were a suspect?’
‘There’s no point, Macy. I didn’t have enough information. I didn’t even know who our client is.’
‘And the Syrian boy – you are still in touch? How old is he now? Where’s the family living?’
‘He’s seventeen or eighteen – I forget. They’re living in Latvia – Riga. They left Germany because Naji was offered a scholarship by the Latvian government. They have fast-tracked his education and he’s well into his degree and getting through it really quickly. The family had a lot of problems last year in a town near Chemnitz in Germany. We had to sort them out.’
‘He must be very able. Can’t think of anyone who has done more to help European intelligence services than that brave little fellow.’
‘He’s almost six foot tall now,’ said Samson, not hiding his frustration. ‘Macy, you’re avoiding the subject because you know I’m angry that you didn’t tell me about Hisami’s involvement in the Crane case. You betrayed my trust.’
‘A touch harsh, Paul.’
Samson never raised his voice but he did now slap his hand on Macy’s desk.
‘No, you screwed up with this one, Macy. The deal is that you tell me everything about a contract – everything! And because you knew I wouldn’t take the job with Hisami in the background, you didn’t bloody well tell me.’
‘Steady, Paul! It’s not like that.’ He put up his hand as his assistant, Tina, came in with the coffee, and nodded thanks without smiling, which Tina knew meant she should leave without the usual banter with her boss and Samson. There’d been a long-standing endeavour by Macy, which preceded Samson’s raging affair with Anastasia and was not entirely unserious, to put Tina and Samson together. Samson had graciously resisted.
‘You and I both know you needed the work,’ said Macy, bringing the cup to his lips. ‘You asked for a hundred grand and we got you that. I knew it wouldn’t be an arduous job, but I didn’t mind charging that because I felt Denis owed you for all the risks you took looking for his sister in Syria. So it seemed to me a good contract and I didn’t feel remotely compromised by keeping this information to myself. So, there it is, Paul.’
This was intended to close the matter, but Samson wasn’t having it. He coolly regarded his racing companion and occasional employer and shook his head. Even if he had wanted to be conciliatory, his nature wouldn’t allow it. ‘I’m sorry to say it, but this is a deal breaker. I damn well have to be able to trust you, Macy. I can’t do these jobs for you if you withhold information from me. And I won’t work with you until that is understood between us.’ He got up, knowing this might be a permanent break. Macy was too hard-nosed and too damned foxy to give him any such assurance.
‘Just sit down, will you, chum,’ Macy said quietly. ‘We’ve a lot more to talk about, and I’m afraid I have some bad news.’ He picked up the phone and said. ‘Is she here?’ He waited. ‘Then send her in.’ He hung up. ‘Please sit down, Paul.’
Samson did as he was asked.
‘This is Zillah Dee, of Dee Strategy Inc., Paul,’ said Macy as a young woman entered with a slim computer case under her arm and a cup of coffee in her hand. ‘Zillah is working for Denis Hisami and she has something to tell you.’
‘I’ve heard about you,’ said Samson.
She sat down in the other chair facing Macy’s desk – no smile, no attempt at pleasantry, although she did offer a hand and gripped his with considerable force. She was striking, well put together, with a kind of irreproachable air. She regarded Samson with remarkably still grey eyes. He smiled but got nothing in return. Hard core, he thought. ‘I’m sorry to hear the news about Mr Crane’s death,’ she said. ‘We will doubtless discuss its relevance momentarily, but first I have to tell you that Mr Hisami’s wife, Anastasia, has been abducted in southern Italy – Calabria – and her whereabouts are currently unknown.’ She said it without drama or the slightest hint of feeling then waited for Samson’s reaction. ‘You understand what I have just said, Mr Samson?’
‘Yes, I do.’ He stopped to absorb it properly. An image of Anastasia laughing passed through his mind – it was always the same memory – and he felt dread and hopelessness wash over him. ‘You’d better tell me the details.’
Which she did over the next ten minutes, in an account as clear and precise as any intelligence briefing, laying out every known detail of the kidnapping on the country road, the death of two migrants, the car used, the telephone calls to Hisami and a colleague in the Foundation, the Italian police investigation and the reporting systems put in place with the Italian authorities and the US Embassy. She told him no ransom demand had been made and that the police thought the abduction had nothing to do with Anastasia’s work with migrants.
Macy glanced at Samson for his reaction. Samson ignored him. He was shocked but he wasn’t going to show it. ‘Then what’s the possible motive?’
‘Over the past few weeks,’ Zillah Dee went on, ‘Mr Hisami has been investigating the transfer of large sums of money out of accounts run by the company TangKi – we thought there was just one, but a source inside the company now says that four accounts are likely being used. And this is why we asked you to trace Mr Crane for us – we were certain that Mr Crane was at the heart of the operation and that all the money was passing through London on its way to multiple destinations in Europe. There can’t be any doubt, sir, that there are parties who desperately want Mr Hisami to desist from this investigation.’
‘Who?’
‘We’re not certain at the present time but Mr Hisami is confident that the suspension of his passport on the day of his wife’s kidnap, the degree of surveillance he has endured and, indeed, the seizing of Mrs Hisami are all connected. In the last twenty-four hours, he has also experienced some business difficulties which he believes are part of a coordinated campaign against his interests.’ She paused. ‘The case you were working on, the disappearance of Adam Crane, is central to the whole affair. It’s a blow that he’s no longer with us because, obviously, he could help.’
Samson leaned forward. ‘What are you doing about Anastasia?’
‘As I said, we have people on the ground in Italy, and they are already liaising with Italian authorities and following up leads. In truth, that’s why I’m here to see you, Mr Samson.’
‘Hisami wants me to find her!’
‘That’s correct, sir. He has asked me to ask you if you would help. He understands the sensitivity of the situation, but he’s had the greatest respect for your abilities since you worked together trying to locate his sister. Would you consider it?’
Samson made a small sweeping gesture to dismiss the question. ‘Of course.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Macy. ‘Can you be objective? Frankly, I wouldn’t recommend it.’
‘Our relationship was over some while ago. My feelings for Anastasia are friendly but they won’t cloud my judgement,’ he said, briefly acknowledging the lie to himself. ‘You can fix everything, Macy? I’ll require an unlimited budget on this. I’ll leave for Italy as soon as possible and will need Tina to arrange a ticket.’
‘There’s no need. I have Mr Hisami’s plane.’
‘Good, but I must stress that I work alone.’
‘Understood, but I need to coordinate with my people and talk to the Italian police. So I will be on the plane with you.’
‘I can’t have you getting in the way,’ he said firmly.
‘Yes, but you must appreciate that I’m in charge of this operation and am reporting directly to Mr Hisami.’
‘Tell him I’ll need to speak to him, because this all seems to be connected with his business dealings. What I want from you now is a detailed briefing on everything.’ He turned to Macy. ‘And, for that, we’ll need a room.’
‘We can do that on the plane, sir. It’ll save time.’
Samson thought for a moment. ‘Yes, but I need to check a few things here before I leave. I’ll meet you at the airport at four. That’s Blackbushe, right?’
She nodded.
An hour later, Samson had packed a rucksack and was on his way to meet Detective Inspector Jo Hayes of the Metropolitan Police in a Mayfair Italian coffee bar that had recently upgraded from a basic greasy spoon to offer a breakfast menu with avocado toast and chia seeds. Hayes, who had served in MI5 but was now back at Counter-terror with the Met, arrived ten minutes after him, by which time Samson had read an email from Zillah Dee. The kidnappers had been identified, with ninety per cent certainty by the Carabinieri, as two mid-ranking figures in the Neapolitan underworld. Their names were Salvatore Bucco and Niccolo Scorza. They had served prison sentences for drug offences and fraud. Scorza owned a soccer bar and Bucco was in the vegetable business. They worked as a team yet there was no suspicion that they’d ever been involved in kidnapping before. A nationwide alert for the two men was in place.
Hayes, a vivid redhead with a wide grin which she deployed as an amateur nightclub singer in her spare time, dumped her shoulder bag on the table and said, with her usual breeziness, ‘Hello, handsome! Shit, you look awful, what’s happened?’
‘It’s complicated,’ said Samson. ‘I need your help.’
‘I owe you, we both know that.’ Three months before, Samson, while investigating the disappearance of a young princess from the Gulf States, had put Jo on to a group that were using artworks to launder money destined for terror groups.
‘You heard about the murder of a man named Ray Shepherd in Knightsbridge?’ he started. ‘Your people had me in because I was involved in tracing this man, who was until recently living in the US under another alias – Adam Crane.’
‘I didn’t know about the American alias but I’m pretty much up to speed. The victim was tortured at an unknown location then dumped on the balcony of his flat.’
Samson nodded. ‘Can you get me into the flat?’
‘You’ve got to be joking,’ she said incredulously. ‘It’s a crime scene. It’s still crawling with Forensics. There’s no way I can do it.’
‘What can I offer you in exchange?’
‘It’s not a question of that, Paul. If I were on the team investigating the murder, I might be able to help, but this isn’t even my beat.’ She smiled at him. ‘What’s the problem? You traced your man. He’s dead. You move on.’ She shrugged at the simple logic of the situation.
Samson glanced out of the window and breathed in. ‘Well, it’s about a kidnap in Italy, and this man held the key to it. The thing is, your people and the Security Service know a lot more than I do about Shepherd/Crane, which is the reason they let me go so quickly. They just wanted to find out who I was working for, but I didn’t have the first idea.’ He thought for a few seconds. ‘How about I give you everything I learn about the victim – that’s everything from the American side? What your people don’t know about is the money. Looks like a huge money-laundering operation.’
‘No,’ she said definitely. ‘No, I am not bloody well doing this – okay?’
‘Maybe hundreds of millions of dollars being washed through London, and Crane was at the centre of it all.’
‘No, no, no! Get it into your fucking head – I can’t do it. Please don’t go on asking me.’
‘Okay, so I’m going to tell you everything. A woman, a woman I once loved very much, was kidnapped in Italy two days ago, just when Crane was being tortured and killed. It looks like she was taken hostage to deter anyone from investigating Crane’s affairs. I have to get into that apartment to check on something. I won’t be more than a minute or two.’ He saw she was thinking hard whether she could get him in.
‘Who is this lucky woman?’ she asked. ‘I didn’t have you down as the falling-in-love type.’
‘She’s an aid worker. We met a few years ago. She’s with someone else now. Married.’
‘And you still love her?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s history.’
‘You poor sod!’ Her leg started jiggling and she looked away. ‘Fuck it. I’ll do it, but on the condition that anything you find out you pass to me and that will be over dinner in your mum’s place. Always wanted to go there.’
She went out and made a couple of calls in the street, pacing up and down with her finger pressed to her ear. He could tell she was calling in some favours. She came back. ‘We’re on, but not until half twelve. I’ll meet you there.’
The apartment was enormous and anonymous, like a very expensive hotel suite, with several large rooms, most of which faced the park and accessed the balcony where Shepherd/Crane was left for all to see. The forensics officer who let them in said, ‘We’re pretty much finished, but you must wear these.’ He handed them blue shoe covers and latex gloves. ‘I’m going for a smoke and coffee. You’ve got ten minutes.’
Samson moved quickly, searching for signs of a computer or laptop. He found nothing, which didn’t surprise him. These items would be the first to be removed by the police. Then he went to the bedroom suite and entered the huge white alabaster bathroom and examined a pair of sinks below a bronze-tinted mirror. There were no personal items to be seen, and nothing in the cabinets under the sinks. He searched the wardrobes but found no clothes and nothing in the chests of drawers either. He looked around and noticed right-angle marks on the wall. ‘Someone’s removed the pictures from the wall!’ he called out. ‘Looks like they were pretty big. They would need two people to take them down. Have they checked with the concierge when these things were moved? Unless the police moved them.’
Hayes was at the door. ‘That’s not something our lot would do.’
‘Might be important,’ he said, going back to the bathroom.
‘What are you doing in there?’ she asked.
‘Just looking,’ he said, taking out one of the labelled zip-lock plastic bags he’d brought with him. He crouched down in the shower and prised off the drain-cover cap and saw what he was looking for. With a pair of tweezers, he pulled out several strands of hair caught in the grille and carefully placed them in the bag. He slipped it in the pocket of his rucksack and joined her in the bedroom.
He then strode across the living room, which also showed no signs of individual taste or of any actual person living in the flat, and opened the door on to the balcony. Hayes’s phone was ringing. She answered at the same time as trying to signal that he shouldn’t go out. Samson seemingly did not see and went out nevertheless.
It was obvious where the body had been propped up. There was blood on the tiled floor. He knelt as if to check something and, using a small craft knife he’d brought, along with the plastic bags, scraped a dried flake of blood into a bag so quickly that when Hayes joined him on the balcony she had no idea what he had done.
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ he said, straightening up. ‘They say he was tortured at another location and then brought here to be killed. Did you see the security in the lobby? How are they going to bring a tortured man into this building – huh? How are they going to avoid the CCTV downstairs and in the lifts? It had to have all happened here, but there are no signs in the bathroom.’ He looked at her. ‘How badly was he tortured? What were the signs?’
She shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’
‘Well, it doesn’t add up, does it?’ This was true. There were some anomalies in the story that he had been told, but they were unimportant to him. Samson had got what he had come for and he wasn’t going to press the point with Hayes, who was already looking impatient.
As they travelled down in the lift, she said, ‘I’d like to know what this was all about, Paul.’
‘The paintings. There were no paintings anywhere to be seen. Crane collected art and he had a good eye. That was one of the ways I tracked him down, a bill of sale from one of the galleries in New Bond Street. So, where are the paintings? Were they stolen, or did someone remove them before the murder, knowing that the murder was going to take place?’
‘You’re saying the motive was theft?’
Hayes, usually so shrewd, was missing the point. ‘Not exactly, but you guys really need to go over the CCTV and find out what was removed from the flat and when.’ He raised his eyebrows on the last word.
‘I’ll mention it,’ she said, still looking puzzled. ‘Was that all you wanted to see?’
‘It was a really useful visit in many ways. I am eternally grateful to you, Jo. We’ll do that dinner in a couple of weeks.’
Outside, he grabbed her hand hurriedly and gave her a kiss on the cheek. ‘Thanks, you’re a star,’ he said before hailing a cab to go to Battersea heliport.
Five minutes after Hisami’s jet took off from Blackbushe, Zillah Dee undid her seatbelt and reached over to tug a broad attaché case towards her. ‘These were sent over by Mr Hisami’s office just this afternoon. I had them printed at Hendricks Harp. They show that a total of $271.5 million has passed through TangKi in the last year, and all of it was bound for London. This is the aggregate from all four bank accounts Mr Hisami traced. There may be more, but we will never know, because five people were fired following Mr Hisami’s meeting with the board members a couple of days ago. He didn’t say as much, but I’m guessing that his source was among them. The company was taking no chances and fired the whole department, and with good pay-outs and NDAs, so that’s the end of his information from inside TangKi.’
She looked at him with those remote grey eyes. ‘What do you make of it, Mr Samson? By the way, what should I call you – Paul, or Mr Samson?’ He caught a glimmer of a smile.
‘Paul’s fine, but most people call me Samson. Have you analysed these figures? Is there any pattern to the transactions?’
‘No, my people are looking at them now, but the interesting thing is where the money’s coming from. As far as we can tell, it’s all inside the States and that’s important. It’s really hard to work out whether it’s been stolen from TangKi or the company is being used as a channel.’
‘Tell me about the TangKi board.’
‘You mean, which one of them helped Crane?’
He nodded.
‘There was a meeting two days ago. I guessed that Mr Hisami asked those particular four board members for a particular purpose. My company is looking into their lives, so I wanted to see them for myself. That’s one of the reasons I was at hand when he got the calls from his wife. All but one could be involved, and that’s Larry Valentine – he has problems with a love child of sixteen that his wife is about to find out about, and, besides, this is not his kind of thing. Of the others, Martin Reid is the most likely because he shared Crane’s right-wing agenda and has a history of making anti-Semitic remarks, which was always Crane’s schtick. Micky Gehrig is Jewish and wrapped up in his space kick but he does have a Russian wife, and that may be important. We’re looking into her. Gil Leppo is Denis Hisami’s friend, and Denis and he have worked together on several investments. So, I guess it would be Martin Reid, because he also has the power to turn the heat on Denis through the government and the banks. Everyone fears him.’
‘So whoever it is gave shelter to Crane while he moved money out of the company and ordered and coordinated Anastasia’s kidnap to coincide with the meeting. Does that sound like Reid?’
She looked out of the window. ‘You’re right, it would be a new departure for him. He’s a bastard, but a really conventional one.’
They ate sandwiches and drank diet Coke. She dozed for twenty minutes and Samson’s mind wandered to Anastasia. He hoped she’d know that he would do everything to find her. When Zillah opened her eyes and reached for the can of Coke again, he asked, ‘What was Crane’s life like in California?’
She looked out of the window at the Alps, which glowed pink below them in the late-afternoon light. ‘You ski, Samson?’
‘No.’
‘Crane did. He was a good downhill skier, cross-country, too – Squaw Valley mostly, Aspen also. He made some serious contacts on the slopes and that’s how he entered the world of tech finance and start-ups. He had the money and the talk. He also had a charming wife, who wasn’t his wife, and two kids that came with her. She literally brought her entire family and loaned it to this operation. That’s a remarkable investment of time, money and effort by someone or other to put their man at the heart of Silicon Valley.’ She stopped and looked out of the window.
‘Do the board members know he’s dead?’ asked Samson.
‘No – the London police are still talking about Ray Shepherd.’
‘What’s going to be their reaction when they learn?’
‘Mr Hisami is waiting for that. He thinks that the people who are in on this – whatever the heck this is – will show their hand. It’s like Crane is his own little Russian sleeper cell, but then he buys into this company, which is actually a very good idea, and it’s now making real money. It’s a success, as start-ups go, so you ask yourself, why did Crane go illegal? Why didn’t he just stay and run the company and make himself a billion dollars?’
‘A higher calling?’
‘Yes, but if he’d been something as simple as a Russian spy, they would have kept him in place.’
‘How much do you know about the Russian connection?’
‘Crane was born Aleksis Chumak in 1973 to a Russian mother and a father who was half Russian, half Ukrainian, in a town fifty miles north of Odessa. There were three boys. His father was a manager in a heavy-engineering works. And get this! He built cranes. The boy was a grade A student at Mechnikov National University in Odessa and was spotted by the embryonic Ukrainian intelligence service, although he was intrinsically part of the Russian culture that Ukrainians rejected. Maybe his Ukrainian second name helped in that. Then the trail goes dead, and the next we hear of him he’s in seriously bad company and setting up all sorts of schemes for defrauding his own government as well as Western investors. Turns out he had a gift for criminality.’
They fell silent. At some point the pilot came on the intercom. ‘We’re just approaching the Adriatic, so we’re less than an hour from Brindisi. You might want to look out on the starboard side of the aircraft, folks. There’s a wonderful view of Venice in the twilight.’ Samson didn’t look out and Zillah’s eyes were focused on her tablet.
He watched her for a few seconds. He had been struck by how young she looked yet how pragmatic her view of life was. She talked like someone with thirty years’ experience of power and politics, yet she couldn’t have been older than thirty-five, certainly not older than Samson, who was now pushing forty.
He noticed a trace of satisfaction in her expression – the first sign of anything approaching warmth in her sternly beautiful features – and saw in the window reflection that she was watching a film. He asked what it was.
‘Sail boats,’ she said. ‘They’re my new passion. I started my company in a decommissioned naval vessel on the Potomac that was like a houseboat and I took to watching the sail boats going by and realised it was a good way of leaving DC and having some fun on the weekend without getting in the car.’ She stopped the film and searched for something, then turned the device towards him. He saw a yacht with a dark blue hull, sails filled and a crew waving at the camera. ‘This is Ariel. I bought her eighteen months ago. She’s a Bjarne AAS fifty-three-foot sloop built in 1952. We all sail it.’
‘Who’s all?’
‘Five members of my staff – we learned together in the spring. We’re a pretty good crew now. She’s moored alongside the old wreck.’
He swiped through the photographs. ‘You have a lot of electronics on board.’
‘Can’t be out of contact. Actually, we can handle pretty much any communications challenge when we’re out on the ocean.’
‘Do you still work out of the old boat?’
‘No, we have offices in DC. But I kept it on. It can be useful for meetings.’
Samson smiled. ‘I have no experience of the sea, but the one trip I took across the Adriatic made me think I’d like to sail.’
‘You would,’ she said, as though he had no choice, and took the tablet back.
‘How did you get into this business?’
‘Advertising,’ she said.
‘That seems like an odd route.’
‘I was running a web advertising company in Manhattan and we were playing around with the steganography – hiding code and messages in images – and someone at the NSA got in contact, though I didn’t know it was the Agency at the time. They were impressed and a little concerned about what we were doing. They asked for help. I gave it and, eventually, I joined the Agency.’
‘But then you left.’
She snorted a laugh. ‘Right – the Agency is fine, but I saw an opportunity. And there were maybe too many procedures and a lot of middle-aged guys who weren’t the sharpest. We started the company knowing that we were only going to use our generation and younger. I guess one day I’ll be made obsolete by a new generation, but then I’ll have my boat and money.’
‘Where did you grow up?’
‘What’s this – a background check?’ A brief glimmer of a smile. ‘I was raised in Kentucky by parents who in their twenties read a book about self-sufficiency – The Good Life, by Helen and Scott Nearing. Have you heard of this book, Samson?’
He shook his head.
‘Right, my childhood and teen years were spent planting peas and hoeing and plucking chickens and stacking cords of wood and weaving blankets with my mom’s faux-I designs of goddam apple trees and doves, and going to a school with kids that were all strictly the end of the gene pool. I guess most of them are now on opioids and giving birth out in the woods. Get the picture? My upbringing was a tedious fucking idyll. Is that enough?’ He nodded. ‘I know all about you, so no need to reciprocate.’ With that she closed the picture of her boat and tried to get on to the plane’s wifi again. Samson studied her for a few seconds. He couldn’t work out whether she was straight, gay or asexual. Zillah Dee gave out no signals whatsoever: she was, in this respect, an utterly neutral presence.
Ten minutes later she said, ‘By the way, I appointed a kidnap consultant this afternoon, an Italian specialist in the field. He may be a waste of money, but I need someone to give us a fix on the police, to tell me when they’re bullshitting and when they’re hiding stuff. He’s recommended by folk in the Agency, so maybe he’ll be of use. There’s a meeting at the Carabinieri headquarters tonight at ten o’clock – all my people, together with the kidnap consultant, Dr Fabiano. We should just make it. We’ll travel together and you can pick up the rental at the police headquarters. You have your driver’s licence?’
Samson nodded. Then, after some thought, he said, ‘Can you gain access to Crane’s home in California?’
‘Shouldn’t be a problem – why?’
He opened the pocket of his rucksack and withdrew two plastic bags. ‘These are DNA samples from Crane’s apartment in London. One’s blood from Crane’s body, the other is hair from the shower next to the master bedroom. I want to see if we can get a match with samples from Crane’s place, samples that are incontrovertibly from Adam Crane. I’d like to be certain that the body on the balcony was really his. From what you’ve told me, Crane is not the kind of man to get himself murdered.’
She took the two bags. ‘I’ll send them to the States tomorrow and I’ll put in train collection of samples from his place now.’ After she’d emailed the instructions she looked up and said, ‘We’d have to make sure it’s a sample from Crane, not the woman and two kids.’ She thought for a moment. ‘But then, that doesn’t matter, does it?’
‘You’re right. All we need is one match. It would be helpful to establish whether the samples from the shower and the balcony in London are from the same person. That will tell us a lot.’
She nodded, went back into her email and started scrolling through the messages. A few moments later she lowered her second can of Coke, swore, then said, ‘This email is from Mr Hisami’s lawyer. Mr Hisami’s been arrested by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement – ICE – on suspicion of lying on his N-400 citizenship application form. They say he failed to disclose his participation in acts of terrorism in Kurdistan and that he is associated with a designated foreign terrorist organisation in Turkey – the PKK. He’s being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.’ She looked up. ‘If Crane is dead, who’s fucking with Mr Hisami?’