Heads You Win

Perhaps it was just a coincidence. Never believe in coincidences, Hammond had warned him. He smiled at Alex, something no other agent had ever done, which only made him more suspicious. Perhaps he was mistaken, and it was just someone who thought he recognized him.

Alex moved away, but the man followed him down the platform. His first mistake. If he had been a CIA agent, he would have disappeared, assuming he’d been spotted. Alex looked down and noticed his second mistake. Although his shoes were highly polished, they were slip-ons, frowned upon by the CIA, who insisted on laces. Such a trivial error.

Alex heard the rumble of an approaching train, and decided to try the jump on/jump off routine, to see if he could lose his shadow. As the train emerged from the tunnel, Alex moved toward the edge of the platform and waited. Suddenly, without warning, he felt two massive hands in the middle of his back, and with one tremendous shove he was propelled toward the track.

He had no way of stopping himself from falling in front of the train. If anything flashed through his mind at that moment, it was that he was about to die, and not a pleasant death. He didn’t notice a young black man racing toward him, who tackled him at the last possible moment, as if he was trying to prevent a touchdown.

The young CIA agent left Alex spreadeagled on the platform, while he set off in pursuit of the assailant. Another tackle, as he felled the man halfway up the steps. A moment later a second agent pinned him to the ground and handcuffed him. The assailant turned and looked at Alex, who was pushing himself up from the platform. Despite the noise and clamor of the train doors opening and the passengers streaming off, Alex didn’t need to translate his mouthed words, “You’re dead.”

18

SASHA

Cambridge

Sasha sat alone in a small, badly lit basement room that he’d previously only read about in a Harry Clifton novel. He wanted to turn the page and find out what was going to happen next.

The door swung open and DS Warwick, accompanied by a female officer, entered the room. They took their places on the opposite side of the table.

“I need to ask you a few questions,” said Warwick, switching on a tape recorder by his side. “A serious allegation has been made against you, but I want to hear your side of the story before I decide how to proceed.”

The one thing Sasha did remember from Harry Clifton novels was that Derek Matthews, the bent barrister whose regular clients were all too familiar with this predicament, always instructed them to say nothing until he arrived. But Sasha wasn’t a criminal, and he had nothing to hide. He waited impatiently to discover what the “serious allegation” was, aware that by withholding that vital piece of information, the detective was trying to make him feel uneasy and nervous. He was succeeding.

“A Miss Fiona Hunter,” said Warwick eventually, “has made a statement that on Thursday, November the sixteenth—last Thursday—you climbed the fire escape outside her room in Newnham College around ten o’ clock, entered her study on the third floor, and stole a confidential file.” He stared directly at Sasha. “What do you have to say about this accusation?”

“What’s in the file?” said Sasha.

The detective ignored the question. “Miss Hunter claims that she has proof you entered the country illegally after escaping from prison, having murdered a police officer.”

“I did escape,” said Sasha, “from the biggest prison on earth. I didn’t murder the KGB officer, but only wish I had.”

“That may all be true, Mr. Karpenko, but as Miss Hunter has made such a serious accusation, we are bound to follow it up. So to start with, where were you on Thursday evening around ten o’clock?”

Sasha knew exactly where he’d been on Thursday night. After attending a debate in the Union, he’d accompanied Charlie back to Newnham, and while she’d entered the college by the front door and gone straight up to her room, he’d made his way around to the back of the building, climbed the fire escape to the second floor, and spent the night with her.

He had woken just before five the following morning, and after they had made love again, he had got dressed, climbed down the fire escape, and walked back to Trinity. He was in his room just before six, and spent the next couple of hours working on an essay that needed to be polished in time for his morning tutorial.

The only problem with Sasha’s cast-iron alibi was that if Charlie was to confirm his story, under Newnham College regulations she would automatically be rusticated, and sent home for the rest of term, making it impossible for her to sit her finals until a full investigation had been carried out, which was bound to conclude that she had indeed broken the rules. Not least because Fiona would be happy to report what she had seen, should her other ruse fail.