Haven

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Everything about the man’s face was sharp: the right-angled nose, the cliffs of his cheekbones, the way the features snagged Purkiss and dragged him into a past that was only a handful of years away but seemed as distant as childhood.

The man was leaning on the railing of a wall that dropped to the rocky beach, a mobile phone clamped to his ear. Purkiss was approaching from his left, and would reach him in ten paces. Taking care not to attract attention by slowing down, Purkiss instead angled the direction of his stride so that he’d pass well behind the man. As he drew nearer he risked another glance at the profile.

Yes, there was no doubt about it.

The man’s name was Oleksander Motruk. A Ukrainian national, he had until 2003 been an officer in the MVS, his country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs. A security policeman, and one with a reputation for brutality and corruption that eventually became an embarrassment too far. After his sacking, he’d set up a freelance business running guns in the western Mediterranean. His clients had included drug lords, nascent resistance movements in North Africa which had been quashed by their ruling regimes before they’d got off the ground, and Islamist groups in France and along the Dalmatian coast.

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