Chapter 18

Sione Latu and Maria Johnson are having a meeting in an unmarked office in an anonymous looking building on Lambton Quay in Central Wellington.

“I am impressed that we already knew about Inka Makkonen’s prior connection with Zoltan at the time of Becker-Lau’s death,” Maria comments.

“Yes it was a major stroke of luck that, shortly after I met our dear Inka, I was talking to my old friend Jaakko, who still works a little for Finnish intelligence in Helsinki, and mentioned that we have an attractive new Finnish professor of Gender Studies at the university, Inka Makkonen. He said the name rang a bell and later got back to me with the information. In the late 90s a KGB agent named ‘Zoltan’ was operating in and around the University of Helsinki and Inka Makkonen was suspected of being one of his recruits, though there was little hard evidence. As Bekker-Lau was killed not long after her arrival, it was a reasonable precaution to pass the information on to the police.”

“You are now confident she is not involved in any way?” asked Maria.

Sione responds, “Yes, I think so. Of course, she had a good alibi for the time period. The way Zoltan arranged to see her and her response in the police interview with Fawkes present encouraged me to accept her sincerity. Similarly I think her response to her house being bugged was convincing. Your reports also support her sincerity. We can never rule out the possibility that we are being played but I don’t think so. In a way, her arrival at the university, which we now assume was a coincidence, was another stroke of luck. Paying attention to Inka made us keep a look out for Zoltan and, of course, when that name appeared in Becker-Lau’s posthumous message it was a very reasonable assumption that it was the same person. More importantly, her presence seems to have spooked Zoltan. Whisking her off to meet with him was an extraordinarily foolish move. How are your supervision sessions going?”

“I think Inka is a little surprised and perhaps even irritated that I persist with the cover story of the directed study project to the extent I do. She would rather I tell her more about the state of our enquiries, which of course I cannot do as we are still not sure she isn’t working with Zoltan. But she is a good supervisor. And it does provide a low stress situation for her to share any thoughts about the case, if she has any.”

“You are probably enjoying it. Someone like yourself with a doctorate in criminology should have the skills, even if the material is rather different.”

“Yes, I am enjoying it and the change of subject is welcome. I am determined to complete the course. What is the latest state of the police investigation?” Maria asks.

“It looks more and more that Zoltan carried out the murder personally, not that we could prove it in a court of law. As you know, the sightings of a well built man in the vicinity of Sammy’s home at the time of his death line up with the photographs we received from Finland as well as with Inka’s tentative identification of the identikit image. We don’t have any other suspect.”

“She says you have met with her again recently. Is there anything I need to know about that?”

“She now knows that I have a history of work in intelligence and what I said is that I now do some contract work for New Zealand intelligence. I thought it best not to say that I am in charge of the intelligence service activities in this matter. I think she accepts that I am semi-retired. My age supports that assumption. It would have been preferable if Inka had no knowledge of my involvement with intelligence. But once I acted to install you as Inka’s student there was always the possibility, even likelihood, that Inka would learn about my involvement from Aroha McLean. The team did well to provide you with a false academic record on the university student records system so quickly. I was a little surprised that Inka went straight to that false phone number, which we had to make real.”

“I have said that I am her main point of contact in these matters. Is that still true?” Maria questions.

“Yes. But it is still useful for her to feel she has someone else to turn to. I don’t think I told you about an amusing little misunderstanding that arose from my first meeting with her. I was eating some rather sour plums and described them as a little tart. The rumour then spread that I had used that phrase to describe Inka. She politely put that to me when she ran into me by chance. I had pretended not to remember her name. Well, I was able to clear up that misunderstanding and it gave me an opportunity to take her to lunch, which, as well as being a pleasure, gave me an opportunity to size her up in an informal setting.”

“Are you concerned for her safety?” Maria asks.

“Yes, I am but, as you know, we have added our listening devices to theirs and so can keep an eye on her discreetly. She naturally has some concern for herself as well as for Mikaere. He is an additional risk in the situation, but it can’t be helped. I am very much aware that Inka, by her very presence, is providing a kind of trap for Zoltan, but we did nothing to arrange it. As we all agree, she has been handling the situation with impressive calm.”

“Do you want to recruit her?”

“Maybe,” SIone replies. “In fact, when she asked me if I thought she was a spy, I said ‘no’ and asked her if she would like to be, though I hadn’t planned to suggest that. She didn’t follow up the suggestion, which is consistent with her not working for the other side. A foreign agent would very likely express some positive interest.”

“Do you want me to work on that, if we become confident of her loyalties?”

“I may become interested in that. You like her, don’t you?”