A Necessary Hell

by Nigel Price

  She seemed to sense it and gave him the brief version. Usual incidents with friends, conflicts with teachers, favourite subjects and the ones he loathed. Sports and hobbies. Harry listened to it all and at the end was surprised to find himself still engaged. When friends rabbited on about their offspring he invariably had trouble keeping his eyelids separate. At times like that the smile he wore hurt his face.

  Not here. He was caught off balance by his reaction.

  “Are you really interested in this?” Ingrid said at last.

  Harry had ordered a brandy for himself, schnapps for Ingrid. Herr Fischer brought them himself, presenting them to his guests with a flourish.

  “I am,” Harry answered, meaning it for once.

  Ingrid was watching the candle flame. Herr Fischer had lit it at the start of the meal and now it was guttering in its glass holder.

  Out of the blue she said, “I was thinking about that finger. The bone.” There was a look of concentration on her face, eyes still watching the candle’s slow death. “Why would it be stripped like that?”

  “He was probably wearing a ring,” Harry said. “Anyone who has ever worked in tanks knows never to wear a ring around machinery, not even a wedding ring.”

  “Why?”

  “Tanks are all hard edges and hard angles. Turret cupolas, things like that. If you jump down to the ground, you might hold onto something to steady yourself as you go. If you’re wearing a ring, the metal of it can lodge in an angle, the same way that a chock works in rock climbing. It wedges in and can take the whole weight of a man. So if you launch yourself off a tank, and your ring gets stuck in one of those angles, it’ll strip the flesh off your finger. Even tear off the whole finger.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “It’s hard to imagine the pain,” Harry said. “Unless the frostbite had killed all feeling first.” Then he told her his puzzle about the timing that he had mentioned to Ritter in Air Traffic Control.

  “Even I know frostbite doesn’t go black in three hours,” she said. “It would be a waxy coloured blister. Not black.”

  “Which means he already had the frostbite when he pulled himself up into the wheel well.”

  “How did he get that in Istanbul?” Ingrid asked. “I mean …” She scrubbed around for an answer. “Where are the nearest mountains? Could he have travelled into the city in that state? And got into the airport, through security and all of that? He can hardly have climbed over the fence.”

  Harry shook his head. “There’s another way. He came in on another flight from somewhere else.”

  “How?”

  “In the wheel well of another aircraft, only that one didn’t kill him.”

  “Why wouldn’t it? The lack of oxygen would kill him, even if the cold had only left him with frostbite.”

  “Because it must have been flying at a lower altitude.”

  “So a local, short-haul flight?”

  “Or a longer flight, but in an aircraft that flies at a lower altitude.”

  “Not a jet then?” she said.

  “A C130 Hercules would fly low enough for him to breathe. They fly anything from a few hundred feet up to about twenty-eight thousand. Usually about twenty to twenty-six thousand, which would fit in this case. And they can fly long distance. Two, three, five thousand miles, depending on the load. Time enough to give a person frostbite. Then there’s the Russian equivalent, the Antonov.” Harry was warming to a subject he knew something about. More than about school kids. “It has similar performance characteristics.”

  “So where did he come from?”

  “Well, the Middle East is awash with C130’s and Syria’s chock full of Antonovs now the Russians are there.”

  “Which is where lots of the refugees are coming from,” Ingrid added.

  “Exactly. So I’d say he stowed away on a C130, perhaps in Iraq or Afghanistan, or an Antonov in Syria, but then found himself in Istanbul rather than the final destination he had probably hoped for.”

  “The free West,” Ingrid said.

  “Yes.” Harry thought about it. “Though an interesting question is who would be flying C130’s into Istanbul and why?”

  “And Antonovs?”

  He pulled a face. “I doubt the Russians would be flying into Istanbul. They’re not best friends with the Turks. It’s more likely to be a C130. So American or British. Though other nationalities use them too.”

  “The Turkish?”

  “Definitely. But they don’t fly so much into areas that a stowaway is likely to come from. I mean, it’s possible he came from somewhere else, but Iraq or Afghanistan are the most likely.”

  She looked puzzled. “How many British or American C130 flights go into Istanbul?”

  “Generally they don’t. If they’re flying to and from bases in the Middle East and needed to refuel en route, or drop off cargo, they’d use an RAF airfield in Cyprus, or an American base in Italy. There are plenty of them.”

  Ingrid looked at him, a half smile on her face. “I’m sorry. It’s not a very nice subject to bring up over dinner. I was just thinking about it. I should have kept my mouth shut.”

  The windows of the dining room had long since darkened, the night outside pressing in on the dozen or so diners. Each little group clustered around its table, enjoying the comforts of Herr and Frau Fischer’s lakeside hotel.

  “That’s okay.” He stared out of the window some metres away. All he could see was the reflection of the diners. Among them, himself and Ingrid. He could see her eyes on him. Her chin was cupped in one hand, the elbow resting on the white cloth.

  “I’ve been thinking about it too. Apart from anything else, because I’ve seen the sort of place he probably came from. Maybe I’ve even done my small bit to wreck it.”

  “Guilt?”

  He thought about that. “Partly. We go and meddle in other peoples’ countries for one reason or another and fuck them up. It makes politicians feel good about themselves, but the collateral damage is often immense.”

  “A cynic might say that’s a hypocritical statement from someone who wasn’t forced into uniform.”

  That stung. One look at her showed that it wasn’t meant to. “Maybe it is,” he conceded. “Hence the guilt.”

  “And hence the interest,” she added.

  They were quiet for a while, drinking and thinking.

  Ingrid checked her watch. “I must be going. I must get back to Thomas. My mother will wonder where I am.”

  “Did you tell her?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  Ingrid smiled. “I was given the raised eyebrow treatment.”

  “To which you responded with …?”

  “I said I was just having dinner with an acquaintance.” She smiled. “Someone of absolutely no importance whatsoever.”

  “Thank you.”

  She laughed. Harry liked the sound of it. For just a moment she reached across the table and laid a hand on his wrist. “A man of neither significance nor interest.”

  He looked at her hand. The next moment it had gone and Ingrid had started to hunt around for her bag and house keys and purse. The beginnings of departure.

  Harry signed for Herr Fischer and indicated that the meal should be put on his room bill.

  “I’ll get you a taxi,” he said. “I’d drive you home only I’m over the limit.”

  “Thank you. That would be great.”

  They went out into the night air. Ingrid started to take off Harry’s jumper that she had worn throughout the meal.

  “No, keep it,” Harry said quickly. “You’ll be cold.”

  “But it’s yours.”

  “Keep it.”

  “How will I get it back to you?”

  “Well I’m here for a couple of days,” he said, trying hard to keep a straight face. “We could always meet up again. Just so I can get my jumper back.”

  “Of course. Why else would we want to meet up?”

  A car pulled up by the roa
dside below. The driver got out.

  “Your ride,” Harry said.

  She took a scrap of paper from her bag and hunted until she found a pen. She scribbled something and handed the scrap to Harry. A mobile number and her address.

  Harry tore the paper in half, took her pen, scribbled, and handed her his own number. “Can I call you tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Please do,” she answered. “My turn to buy dinner.”

  “Or we could go for a walk. Round the wall or along the dam.”

  “That would be nice.”

  He walked her down to the car. The driver was already back in his seat so Harry opened the rear door for her. Then a moment of indecision. Harry’s only consolation was that they were both caught by it. Hand shake? Peck on the cheek? One cheek or two?

  He badly wanted to kiss her on the lips, but after the first date? He really was out of practice.

  While he was trying to work it out, she leant across and planted the quickest, lightest peck on his lips. They barely touched. Harry guessed that he was going to feel it long into the night.

  She got in. Harry closed the door. She was trying to find out how to open the window when the car pulled away, so she settled for a wave through the rear window.

  Harry watched her go until the car rounded a bend and disappeared from view. Then he walked back up the steps to the hotel and went inside.

  He went back to their table in the dining room and retrieved his brandy, still half left. He was going to sit down but the sight of the empty chair where, only moments before, Ingrid had been sitting, sent him quickly away. Too lonely sitting opposite her ghost.

  He found a seat in the bar. The other guests had all gone and he was alone. The brandy burned his lips much as Ingrid’s mouth had done. He liked her. He really did. It had been quite a day.

  “Herr Brown?” He looked up as Herr Fischer appeared, as genial a host as ever. “Your taxi is here.”

  “Taxi?”

  “Yes. You ordered a taxi for the lady. Is she ready?” Herr Fischer looked around the empty room for his guest’s guest. Behind him, a taxi driver stood in the doorway.

  Harry put his brandy on the table and stuffed a hand in his pocket. He pulled out his mobile and spread the scrap of paper on his knee, staring at the number Ingrid had written on it, preparing to dial. Then he remembered that she didn’t have her mobile with her. She had left it at home when she had set out that morning, before her drive, and before she had crashed into Harry’s life.

  Nine

  The road over the ridge wound through pitch black countryside. In the rear seat, Ingrid settled back and mentally scrolled through the events and talk of the evening. She looked out of the window but there was nothing to see. Just her own reflection looking contentedly back at her. It looked satisfied. Pleased with itself.

  She had given the driver her address and was happy to surrender responsibility. She had borne that burden long enough. Ever since David had gone. God, how long ago that seemed. Another world. Good riddance to it and to him.

  But tonight had been … what? Fun, certainly. Surprisingly so. Something more though. She thought about it, looking at her reflection for the clue. It had been like coming across a forgotten drawer of old, once favourite clothes, and trying them on again, and finding they could still fit. And were still favourites, however long forgotten. They pre-dated her disastrous marriage, back to a time when she had been an altogether different person.

  She thought about Harry. What did she make of him? She found him difficult to figure out. Yet something between them clicked. What a cliché. She liked him and she could tell he liked her. It was a pity he was only going to be around for a couple of days. Mind you …

  She noticed the road and a turning. She leaned forward.

  “Which way are you going?”

  The driver didn’t reply.

  She tapped him on the shoulder. For a second she wondered if he spoke German though he looked like a local. “Excuse me,” she said. “Which way are you going?”

  He half turned to reply. “It’s okay. There are road works the other way. Overnight ones. They’ve shut down the whole road. Something to do with a burst water main.”

  She relaxed. “Ah. okay. Thanks.”

  Back to Harry. It had been quite a day. So very strange, yet with such a nice ending. No. Not nice. Lovely. She hardly dared believe it, but she felt she had made a new friend. Perhaps more than a friend.

  “Had a nice evening?”

  She started. Looked up. The driver was watching her in his rear view mirror. She sat up a bit. “Yes, thank you.”

  “It’s nice, isn’t it? Haus Fischer.”

  “Yes. Very.”

  “I ate there myself once. Quite a time ago though. Is the coffee still shit?”

  Ingrid felt her smile become polite. No longer warm. “It was fine tonight.”

  The driver shrugged.

  They drove in silence for a bit. Ingrid took a bit more notice of the route. With slight alarm, she realised she didn’t recognise where they were. “Are you sure this is the right way?”

  “Leave the driving to me, Fraulein,” he said.

  “Frau,” she corrected.

  He shrugged again. In the rear view mirror she could see only a rectangular slice of his face. High cheek bones. Young. His shoulders were muscular. Ingrid looked past him at the dash board.

  “Don’t you have a meter?”

  “No. It’s a fixed fee. Didn’t the office tell you that?”

  “No. It wasn’t me who called.”

  His eyes kept glancing at her, though not at her eyes. He wasn’t interested in her face. She was sitting upright now. All thought of the meal had gone.

  “Did you hear about the business at the airport today?” he said.

  “Airport?”

  “Erwitte. It was on the radio. They found the body of a stowaway in one of the planes. Had to scrape him off the undercarriage.”

  She saw him screw up his face in the mirror. Still leering though.

  “I heard something about that. Not on the radio though.”

  “Oh?” Instantly she regretted her reply. “So how did you hear about it then?”

  “Long story.”

  “We’ve got time.”

  “Not if you’re only taking me to Soest.”

  He thought about this for a moment. “So what do you think about it?”

  Ingrid looked away. She felt his eyes stripping her. She folded her arms across her chest. “Nothing. Just some poor man trying to find a better life.”

  “Nothing more than that?”

  “What more could it be?” She was half weighing the risks of asking him to stop the car and getting out. But then what? They were in the middle of nowhere.

  “I thought you might have some theories about it, that’s all.”

  “Theories?” she said, puzzled. “Why would I?”

  “No reason.”

  He was slowing the car. Trees were on either side, closing in. Their lowest branches reached out and scratched the outside of the window. Fingers down a blackboard.

  Ingrid slipped one hand into her bag and rummaged silently for her house keys. Finding them, she looped one forefinger through the ring and made a fist around the bunch, working three of the keys between her fingers then clenching the improvised knuckleduster. If he tried to hurt her she would rip open his face.

  ****

  Harry threw the Jaguar into the bends, hurtling in the direction taken by Ingrid’s car. Almost instantly he came upon a junction. Which way? He carried straight on. Then further along, another. Again, straight on. He realised that already he could have made four mistakes. He’d hated maths. Maybe it was more than four? Fuck it. Either way he had watched Ingrid disappear into the night with a complete stranger who had pretended to be a taxi driver.

  His headlights cut through the thick night. He had sobered the moment Herr Fischer had addressed him. The moment he had seen the taxi driver standing there, tired e
xpression, polite, end of his shift. A taxi driver. The other guy Harry had barely noticed. Why should he have done? At that moment he’d only had eyes for Ingrid. Who wouldn’t? She was lovely.

  A rabbit at the roadside stared into his headlights, frozen for a second, then bolted into deep grass. Harry was stone cold sober. He felt anger, mostly with himself. For the man who had taken Ingrid there was something much darker.

  There was fear too. God he knew all about that. It dug a hollow in his gut and filled it, curling there like a big fat fucking snake.

  He came to another junction and slammed on the brakes. This was stupid. Every second could be taking him in completely the wrong direction. The scrap of paper with Ingrid’s number on it lay beside him on the passenger seat. But she didn’t have her mobile. Harry had been through that already.

  He reached across and turned the paper over. Her address. He went for the dashboard and punched a switch under the satnav. It yawned and came to life. Language? English, fuck you.

  He stabbed his way through the buttons. Every mistake and wrong command met with an outburst. Getting him nowhere. He took a deep breath and steadied himself. Then started again.

  Language? English.

  There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

  Just do it! He stabbed again.

  Finally he had it set. Ingrid’s address programmed. He would go there. All being well, at the speed he was going he would pass her on the way. Failing that, he’d be there after her and could at least check that she was alright. There must be a simple explanation. She had to be okay.

  The satnav grudgingly told him it would take twelve minutes to get to the address Harry had punched in. He was staring at the little screen trying to make out the arrows when there was a shrill noise behind him. He looked in the rear-view mirror to see a flashing blue light.

  “Shit.” All this while he had been sitting in the middle of his lane, blocking anyone else from accessing the road junction. Not that there was anyone else about. Just a police patrol car.

  He slipped the Jaguar in gear and pulled over to the side of the road and waited. He was anxious to get going. The last thing he needed now was a lengthy explanation to the police who would doubtless have reams of questions. They would probably smell the alcohol on his breath too. Yet he could be at Ingrid’s in twelve minutes.