The Sandman

127

Corinne Meilleroux puts her phone down on the table and shakes her head, sending a waft of expensive perfume all the way over to Pollock.

He’s been sitting there waiting for her to conclude the call, and has been thinking of asking if she’d like to have dinner with him one evening.

‘I’m not getting a sausage,’ she says.

‘A sausage,’ he repeats with a wry smile.

‘Isn’t that what you say?’

‘It’s not too common these days, but...’

‘I spoke to an Anton Takirov at Kazakhstan’s security police, the NSC,’ she says. ‘It only took a second. He told me that Jurek Walter isn’t a Kazakh citizen quicker than I can open my laptop. I was very polite and asked them to conduct a new search, but this Takirov just seemed insulted and said that they did actually have computers in Kazakhstan.’

‘Maybe he’s not good at talking to women.’

‘When I tried to tell Mr Takirov that DNA matching can take a bit of time, he interrupted me and explained that they had the most modern system in the world.’

‘So basically they don’t want to help.’

‘In contrast to the federal security service of the Russian Federation. We have a good relationship with them these days. Dmitry Urgov just called me back. They’ve got nothing that matches what I sent them, but he said he’d personally ask the national police to look through the pictures and check their DNA register...’

Corinne closes her eyes and massages her neck. Pollock looks at her, trying to suppress the urge to offer to help. He’d be more than happy to stand behind her, gently softening up the muscles in her back.

‘I’ve got warm hands,’ Pollock says just as Joona Linna comes in.

‘Can I feel?’ he asks in his deep Finnish accent.

‘Kazakhstan aren’t making things easy for us,’ Corinne tells him. ‘But I—’

‘Jurek Walter comes from Russia,’ Joona says, taking a handful of sweets from a bowl.

‘Russia,’ she repeats blankly.

‘He speaks perfect Russian.’

‘Would Dmitry Urgov have lied to me...? Sorry, but I know him, and I really don’t believe that...’

‘He probably doesn’t know anything,’ Joona says, putting the sweets in his pocket. ‘Jurek Walter’s so old that it must have been in the days of the KGB.’