Europe in Winter (The Fractured Europe Sequence)(82)

“I’m all right.” Forsyth sat up and clasped his knees to his chest. “What the f*cking hell has been going on, Leon?”

Leon looked around the bedroom for something to sit on, but the futon was the only furniture, so he sat on the rucksack, put his hands on his knees, and said, “Did Hiroshi tell you about the flat?”

Forsyth nodded.

“A gas explosion, according to the police.” Leon tipped his head to one side. “A not totally implausible explanation, considering the state of the water heater.”

“I kept telling you to fix that f*cking thing,” Forsyth said.

“I bumped into Anatoli yesterday. You know, the Kings’ lead guitarist? He’d just got out of hospital. He said he thought it was something to do with the decorators.”

Forsyth thought about this. Then he said, “What decorators?”

Leon pointed a finger at Forsyth as if the Scotsman had just won a major prize in a game-show. “My point exactly!” he cried. “What decorators. The two workmen Anatoli saw letting themselves into the flat on the morning of the explosion with tins of paint and brushes and dust-sheets and all that stuff, that’s what decorators.”

Forsyth closed his eyes.

“Pretty f*cking amateur,” Leon said, “since the only people they actually managed to kill were two Ukrainian musicians and old Mr and Mrs Dobrowolski downstairs.”

“Well,” Forsyth said. He opened his eyes and blinked at Leon. “We’re homeless then.”

“Oh no.” Leon shook his head. “You were homeless already.”

“If Crispin isn’t dead, I’ll kill him myself,” Forsyth said, getting up from the futon and going over to the wardrobe.

“Is it safe to talk in here?” said Leon.

“Probably.” Forsyth started to get dressed. Kwak-Kwak had had his clothes laundered during the night, but there was still an unidentified stain on the right knee of his jeans as a souvenir of his stay with Fox.

“I’ve been going over and over it in my head.” Leon shifted his weight, trying to make himself more comfortable on the rucksack. “Crispin gets involved in some mad scheme to sell... something to the Georgians on Babykiller’s behalf. Crispin hides the drive in the Metro, then has to leave because all work’s suspended. Then Crispin has to leave the country – you never told me why he did that.”

Forsyth shook his head. “Crispin never said. He was in a hurry, though. I remember that.”

Leon shrugged. “Five months later, Crispin comes back. You help him retrieve the drive. Crispin gets killed.”

Struggling within the depths of his sweater, Forsyth said, “We don’t know that. I didn’t see his body. I didn’t see what happened to him.”

“Okay, okay. Something happens to Crispin and he’s not there any more, is that better?”

“It’s more accurate.” Forsyth’s head popped through the neck of his sweater. “Although the daft wee sod probably is dead.”

Leon waved his hand to shut Forsyth up. “Probably. Yes. All right. So the day after Crispin disappears, a bunch of Georgians washes up in the Wis?a, and two days after that our flat blows up.”

Forsyth found his boots in the bottom of the wardrobe and carried them back to the futon. He sat down and stuffed his foot into one of the boots.

“You didn’t actually see who else was down there with you, did you,” Leon said.

“It was the Georgians.” Forsyth put on his other boot and started to lace it up. “Who else could it have been?”

“I’ve been wondering about that,” Leon said. He took the hard drive from his pocket and held it up. “We’ve been working on the assumption that whoever it was wanted this, yes?”

“The Georgians,” Forsyth said. “Because they didn’t want to pay for it.”

“But why would they have to?” asked Leon. “There’s only a map of the Warsaw Metro on here, and they can get one of those anywhere.”

“It’s the complete civil engineering schematic, not the tourist map,” Forsyth said. “But yes, you’re right. It wouldn’t be hard to get hold of.”

“In which case,” Leon said, “either the Georgians were expecting something else to be on here – nuclear launch codes or something, say – and this harmless map was substituted for them, or this harmless map is not as harmless as it seems.”

Forsyth looked at the hard drive. “Why would it not be harmless?”

“Because,” said a voice behind Leon, “there are places where maps are uniquely powerful.” A man edged into view in the doorway. He had a young face but grey in his hair, and he walked with a cane.

Forsyth looked from him to Leon, then back again. Then back again. “Are there not enough people mixed up in this mess already?” he asked.

“It’s possible,” said the man with the cane, “that you have stumbled on something quite significant, and I would like to buy it from you.”

“You can take it, and good luck to you,” said Forsyth. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s not worth anything.”

Leon pulled a face.

“In addition,” the man with the cane continued, “I can offer you safe passage out of Poland and a new identity in any nation, polity or sovereign entity in Europe.”