Eusden had supposedly spent those minutes perusing the tersely worded confidentiality agreement Matalainen had slid across the flawless surface of his desk for him to sign. The English version was flanked by one in Danish and one in Finnish. The agreement amounted to an undertaking never to disclose to any third party any information which he came into possession of at Luumitie 27, 00330 Helsinki, Finland, on this twelfth day of February, 2007. It had taken him only a few seconds to establish that much. His thoughts had then drifted to the host of questions raised by his sighting of Lars Aksden in the street below. And it was anxious contemplation of those that no doubt caused him to frown and shake his head.

‘Is there a problem, Mr Eusden?’ Matalainen asked.

‘What?’

‘A problem? With the agreement?’

‘No. I . . .’ Eusden raised an apologetic hand. ‘Sorry. I just . . .’ He exerted himself to focus his thoughts. ‘The agreement’s fine. I’m happy to sign it.’ Then some instinct told him not to be too cooperative. ‘I can’t read Danish, of course.’

‘I assure you they are exact translations.’ Matalainen’s gaze narrowed as the point struck home. ‘Surely you can’t read Finnish either, Mr Eusden.’

‘No. I can’t.’

‘But you specified Danish.’

‘I wasn’t talking about these documents. I meant the ones we’ll be collecting later. They’re all in Danish. So, how could I learn anything from them I might reveal later? The agreement caters for an impossible contingency.’

Matalainen smiled thinly. ‘In that case you lose nothing by signing it.’

Eusden returned the smile. ‘Quite so.’ He picked up the proffered pen and signed.

Koskinen added his signature as witness. Matalainen gathered up the trilingual versions of the documents, gave Eusden a copy and stood up, signalling that their meeting was at an end. ‘Näkemiin, Mr Eusden,’ he said, extending a hand and bowing faintly. ‘I’ll see you later.’

‘You should change your dentist.’

‘Ah, no. He is very efficient. I just don’t want to go fishing with him. But I always need a drink after visiting him. You want one?’

‘I want several. But one will do.’

‘Kippis,’ said Koskinen, starting on his beer. ‘Your good health, Mr Eusden.’

‘Call me Richard. How long have you worked – did you work – for Mjollnir, Osmo?’

‘Not so long really. They bought me with VFG Timber. But they were good to me. Another company might have . . . moved me on.’

‘So, Tolmar Aksden’s a good man to work for?’

‘He asks for a lot. He gives a lot.’

‘You got to know him well?’

‘Not well, Richard, no. He has a saying: “Don’t bring your family to work.” He never brought his. Besides, he was most of the time in Copenhagen.’

‘Ever meet his brother Lars?’

‘No. I have heard about him. He paints, I think. But, no, I have never met him.’

‘Would you know him if you saw him?’

Koskinen frowned. Eusden’s line of questioning was beginning to puzzle him. ‘Probably not.’

‘Have you seen Tolmar during his latest visit to Helsinki?’

‘No. He has been very busy, according to the newspapers. That is all I know now I am retired: what I read in the papers.’

‘And what do you read about him?’

‘Oh, there are some messy politics now he has brought Saukko Bank. They are full of it.’

‘What do they say?’

Koskinen’s smile was more of a wince. He had been drawn into a subject he was clearly uncomfortable with. ‘It looks like not everybody is happy with the scale of Saukko’s Russian investments now the takeover has brought them to their attention. Commercially smart, but politically . . . sensitive.’ He shrugged and took a swig of beer, then glanced through the window, squinting as if focusing on something in the distance. ‘We Finns always worry about Russia. Either it is too strong or too weak. But always it is our neighbour.’ He looked back at Eusden. ‘Excuse me, Richard. This talk of weakness has gone to my bladder.’

Koskinen rose with a scraping of his chair, and ambled off to the loo, leaving Eusden to dwell once more on the mystery of Lars Aksden’s presence in Helsinki. Should he tell Pernille? The moment of decision was fast approaching. He was also aware he needed to phone in some fresh – or warmed-over – excuse for his no-show at the Foreign Office now a new working week had begun, though his life there felt more like a false memory of someone else’s. In search of distraction, he grabbed an abandoned newspaper from an adjacent table.

Helsingin Sanomat forecast minus temperatures in double figures and cloudy conditions for Helsinki. ‘Great,’ Eusden muttered to himself, leafing through page after page of impenetrable Finnish headlines. ‘Just great.’ Then he saw the magic word: Mjollnir. And then . . .

A photograph adjoining an article in the business section of the paper analysing, as far as he could tell, Mjollnir’s performance since its takeover of Saukko Bank, showed two smiling besuited captains of commerce in a wood-panelled conference room. The caption beneath identified them as Arto Falenius and . . .Tolmar Aksden.

Falenius was a debonair middle-aged figure in pinstripes, with a spotted tie and a matching handkerchief billowing from his breast pocket, greying hair worn daringly long, handsome face tanned enough to suggest he spent a sizeable chunk of the Nordic winter in sunnier climes. His status was unclear to Eusden. Saukko’s CEO, perhaps, celebrating a synergetic merger? The photograph might not be contemporary, of course. It could easily date from the previous autumn.

There was certainly no doubt, however, that Aksden was the dominant partner. He was taller than Falenius by several inches, older by a couple of decades and altogether more serious. His suit and tie were unpatterned, his smile cooler, his gaze harder. There was a bulk about him, of muscle and intellect. He looked a lot like his brother, but without as many visible ravages of self-indulgence. Instead, there was calmness and certainty in his face, confidence edged with something like defiance in his expression. Or was it contempt? Yes. There was a hint of that in his bearing and demeanour: an ingrained knowledge of his own superiority.

A movement at the door suddenly caught Eusden’s eye. He looked up just in time to see Koskinen exiting the café, shrugging on the overcoat he had retrieved from the hatstand as he went. He moved fast, without looking back.

‘Osmo!’ Eusden called. But he was too late. The door had already closed. He stood up, baffled and dismayed. What was the fellow playing at? He headed after him.

But the waiter intercepted, clutching the bill. There was a flurry of confusion and misunderstanding. Eusden wasted precious minutes offering Danish, then Swedish, kroner in payment before pulling out some euros. By the time he reached the street, Koskinen had vanished. He swore, loudly enough to offend a woman walking by, and asked himself again what Koskinen’s game could possibly be. His behaviour was inexplicable.

Then Eusden remembered him looking out of the window just before excusing himself. What had he been looking at? The cathedral was the obvious answer. It dominated the view across the square. Had someone on the steps leading up to it signalled to him? Had the time shown on its clock triggered his move?

In one sense, it did not matter. The fact was that he had gone. Eusden shivered, realizing as the chill bit into him that he had left his coat in the café. He turned back.

A man was standing directly in his path dressed in a black cap and dark casual clothes. He was tall and muscular and stony-faced. For a second, Eusden gaped at him. And the man stared expressionlessly back. Eusden heard a vehicle pull up at the kerb next to him, skidding in the ice-clogged gutter. Then the man kneed him in the groin with such force that he doubled up, his eyes misting with pain. He was seized about the shoulders. A heavy hand descended on to his neck. He was pushed and pulled backwards, his heels dragging on the pavement.

Suddenly, he was on the floor of a Transit van, the door sliding shut as it accelerated away. There were two men above and around him, lurching with the motion of the van. He heard the sound of tape being peeled from a roll. He tried to sit up, but was shoved back down. His hands were yanked round behind him. The tape was wound tightly round them and his ankles simultaneously. Within seconds, he was trussed and helpless.

‘For God’s sake,’ he gasped. ‘What do you—’ Then a strip of tape was slapped over his mouth as well.

‘Change of plan, Mr Eusden.’ Eusden twisted in the direction the voice had come from and saw Erik Lund smiling at him through the grille from the passenger seat. ‘For you.’ He felt something sharp jab into his left arm. ‘My advice is to stop struggling.’

Eusden had no intention of taking Lund’s advice. But within seconds he had no choice in the matter. The jolting of the van merged with waves of wooziness that swept into his brain. The figures around him blurred into monochrome – then merged into blackness.