Deception

by Adrian Magson

  What he meant, Sylvia thought cynically, was that Ulf had been in the East German army and Sylvia had been in the . . . the job she’d been in. To Wilhelm, that meant they had contacts . . . people who knew things. He was one of very few people who knew about Sylvia’s past, although he cared nothing about it. History is history, he often said pragmatically, best forgotten.

  She took the passport from the pocket of her apron, listening for the sound of footsteps on the landing. Such caution was second nature to her; the grate of steps in the night, the rustle of thick serge cloth, the rumble of heavy boots and the clink of weapons moments before the door burst open and the future ceased to be. It had been a way of life for everyone here once. Now all she had left was the bite of ingrained paranoia.

  The book was slim, dark-red, the colour of dried blood. The pages were rich and stiff, the paper of good quality. In the back was a photograph of a man with short hair and broad cheekbones. He wasn’t smiling, so she couldn’t tell what he would be like. A smile told you so much about a person. A doctor, she thought wistfully? A handsome man, anyway. Probably rich.

  These things must be worth something, she hoped fervently. Down by the station, in the seedy backstreet cafés where she never went, there were people who would pay for such things; foreigners, mostly, from all quarters of the world. One had to be careful to get the money before handing over the goods, so it was no good her trying it. She’d be no match for a man in that situation. She would have to speak to Ulf.

  EIGHTEEN

  The KLM flight from London City dropped Harry into Rotterdam airport under a leaden grey sky. He was thankful that none of the other passengers – mostly businessmen, bleary-eyed after early starts – had attempted any conversation. It had allowed him to close his eyes for a short while and catch up on some sleep, a trick he had worked hard on perfecting over the years. He made his way through the terminal and enquired at the information desk about travelling to Scheveningen. The woman rolled her eyes and wagged a finger, saying quietly, ‘Sir, you must not take a car to this place. It is impossible to park and very expensive. Taxis are cheaper and quicker.’ She handed him a basic map of The Hague and its surrounding districts, and directed him towards the taxi rank.

  Scheveningen was a neat, modern and busy resort, and virtually a suburb of The Hague. It boasted sweeping sands, an impressive pier and an abundance of smart hotels and restaurants for the clean-living burghers of Den Haag, or the conference delegates too intent on business to have any interest in the various fleshpots of Rotterdam. In the background were a number of modern high-rise buildings which seemed to blend in perfectly with the holiday setting.

  Harry asked the cab driver to drop him off and walked along the front, getting a feel for the place. He shivered slightly at a stiff breeze sweeping along the promenade, stinging his face with a light touch of fine sand. He was trying to see the place from Pike’s point of view, and what might have attracted him here. Was it purely for a meeting with the Protectory, to barter over what he could bring them and how much he was worth? Or had he come here in the final stages of deciding to return home?

  He walked past the magnificent structure of the Kurhaus Hotel which, according to a brochure the cab driver had thrust at him, had been central in location and social standing to the resort since 1885. It boasted a fine restaurant and facilities, including a famous concert hall – the Kurzaal – and for that reason Harry decided Pike wouldn’t have gone anywhere near it. A deserter on the run would find such places too open, too threatening. He’d also spotted at least two cameras along the front, and Pike would have avoided them, too.

  He turned inland and found his way into a collection of back streets. Elegant and orderly, but much less open, this was more likely a setting for a fugitive wishing to stay out of the limelight. Casual clothing was the norm and Pike would have blended in well here, just another man prowling the streets with time to kill.

  He checked the address of the ATM machine Pike had used, and found it in a branch of ING Bank. It was just along the street from a ticket agency offering holidays to the Maldives and cruises down the Nile. The same agency where Pike had bought his Eurostar ticket.

  He did a slow tour of the neighbourhood, ostensibly window-shopping while noting the various bars and cafés, a sex shop and a nightclub. The rest were small shops and businesses, and neat, red-brick houses topped by bright-red roof tiles. The sex shop aside, the area could not have been more anonymous, more normal. It was almost small-town compared to the vibrant modernity of the beach front area, and offered no clue as to what Pike could have been doing here other than blending in. Keeping his head down. Yet he’d used the machine twice. It suggested he’d stayed somewhere nearby. Anyone keeping a low profile wouldn’t risk walking far in broad daylight to use an ATM or to buy a train ticket – there was too much danger involved. Duck out, do what was necessary, duck back in, all with the minimum of exposure, would be the norm. The excursions to a bar-café were different; that would have been at night when it was easier to stay in the shadows.

  Harry wondered at what point Pike had made up his mind about going home, in spite of having allegedly taken the Protectory’s money, if that was where it had come from. Even those intending to sell secrets they had promised to keep might suffer the equivalent to a seven-day cooling-off period, a crisis of conscience highlighted rather than salved by an influx of illicit cash.

  He entered the tour agency and showed the man behind the desk the photo of Pike. ‘I’m looking for my brother-in-law,’ he explained. ‘He stayed in the area and bought a Eurostar ticket to London, but never arrived home. His name’s Fraser.’ He had written the ticket stub number on the back of the photo.

  The manager hesitated for a moment, then shrugged as if answering questions from relatives whose brothers-in-law had not arrived home was not an uncommon occurrence. He entered the number in his computer, waited for a second, then said, ‘Mr Fraser gave his address as the Monro Hostel. It is very popular with people on a budget. Go down Keizerstraat for two hundred metres, then take a left. It is not far.’

  ‘He paid cash?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Harry thanked him for his help and followed the directions to the Monro Hostel, a red-brick building set back from the street with a large awning over the front. He went inside and stepped over a pile of backpacks to the small desk, and rang the bell. A large woman with bright-red hair came out through a beaded curtain and nodded. ‘Goedemorgen.’

  Harry explained about his wayward brother-in-law, and how his sister was worried about her husband. The woman listened without comment, then checked a register.

  ‘Nee,’ she said eventually. ‘Mijnheer Fraser was here two days, but no more.’ She pointed back towards Keizerstraat. ‘Try the Continentale Café. I see him there two times, at night, with friends. I hope he is OK, your brother.’ Then she turned and disappeared through the curtain.

  With friends. That could mean anything or nothing. Drinking buddies for the evening . . . or something more focussed and deliberate.

  The Continentale was sleek, modern and furnished with polished wooden bench seats and tables, and a scattering of ethnic cushions under subdued lighting. A small dais at the end was overlooked by a row of coloured spotlights and held two large amplifiers and a microphone. The barman was a spit for a young Bruce Springsteen, right down to the blue jeans and waistcoat, and nodded as Harry approached the bar. There were no other customers, in spite of it being close to lunchtime, and he guessed the place probably came alive at night.

  He ordered a coffee and slid Pike’s photo across the bar. ‘Have you seen this man recently? His name’s Fraser.’ He didn’t bother with the brother-in-law; any pro barmen would automatically clam up when faced with a story like that.

  The man put down the glass he was polishing and studied the picture, his expression blank. ‘Sorry, pal.’ His accent was pure American, the voice a growl nurtured on late nights and too many cigarettes. ‘Don’t remember him.�
� He dropped the photo and turned to pour a cup of coffee from a percolator on the back counter. He placed the cup in front of Harry and added cream and sugar alongside. ‘Come night-time, this place rocks, y’know? People come and go all the time. Just faces, most of ’em. It’s like Grand Central. What’s he done?’

  Harry wasn’t in the habit of making snap judgements. He usually had to know people a while before judging their character . . . unless they were brandishing a weapon or wearing a body belt of explosives strapped to their chests, then he felt able to make all the judgements in the world. But this man was different. Whether it was his tone, body language or accent, or the knowledge that Pike had been here more than once with ‘friends’, he knew without a shadow of doubt that the barman was what he’d been looking for. He was crossing the trail of the Protectory.

  It felt like stepping over a snake.

  ‘You never saw him.’

  ‘Not what I said. I said I don’t remember seeing him. Different thing altogether.’ He gave a tough-guy smile, as if pleased with his response, and picked up the glass and resumed his polishing.

  ‘You’re right,’ said Harry. ‘It is different.’ He sipped the coffee. It was stewed and bitter on the palate. He decided to push harder. ‘Why, if you don’t remember him, have you just polished that glass three times since I came in?’

  The barman stared at him and flushed. He’ll remember this, thought Harry, watching the anger rise in the man’s face. He’ll remember and pass the word.

  ‘I think you’d better leave.’ The barman put down the glass again and lifted his chest. ‘Right now. The coffee’s on the house.’

  The barman waited for five minutes after the Englishman had gone. Then he went over to a payphone at the rear of the premises. He dialled a number from memory, and when it was answered, identified himself.

  ‘Wait there,’ said a woman’s voice on the other end. ‘Keep the line free. He’ll call back.’

  He placed an ‘Out of Order’ sign on the phone and went back to the bar, where he continued polishing glasses. When the phone rang, he picked it up.

  ‘What have you got?’ The voice was male, the accent British.

  ‘It’s Daniels. I just had a guy in here asking questions.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘You know. The guy on the run . . . Fraser. This fella showed me a photo. It was definitely him.’

  ‘What was his name? What did he look like?’

  ‘He didn’t say his name. I didn’t ask. Just a guy, y’know? British, forty-something, good build, not a business type, though. Smelled like a cop. Hard-nosed.’ He had his own reasons for avoiding cops; especially those from countries with extradition treaties. He recalled the way the man had looked at him, and how he’d felt a sudden chill in his stomach. Drunks sometimes had the same look. But they were rarely dangerous. Drunks he could deal with. But this one had been stone cold sober. He considered the answer he’d given the visitor, and decided on a small lie. ‘I told him I’d never seen the guy before.’

  There was a short silence, then, ‘That was a mistake. Not remembering is a better answer.’

  NINETEEN

  In Schwedt, Sylvia Heidl struggled into a thin overcoat and headscarf, picked up a shopping bag, then cast around for a moment before gathering together a pair of worn shoes and an old towel. She placed the phone and passport in the bag, and covered them with the towel. After checking the bag to make sure nothing could be seen, she slipped on her shoes and left the flat.

  The air on the landing was cold and damp. She took a deep breath, feeling the customary stab of pain in her chest. It hurt more today than it had in a while, and she wondered if Ulf had managed to get her any more painkillers. She wasn’t sure she could take another day without them.

  As she emerged from the prefab concrete block, one of the few cheap workers’ buildings that hadn’t been flattened in the wake of reunification and development, the smell from the refinery and factories engulfed her like a cloak. They had said you would get used to it, but she never had. She followed the path into town. A steady stream of heavy trucks caked in mud thundered along the narrow road, their slipstream tugging at her coat and whipping a spray of damp grit across her face.

  She passed only two other women on the way. Both ignored her. The streets in the centre were quiet, with a scattering of cars and one or two pickup trucks. If there was any new wealth from the reunification, it had not yet penetrated this far in any major way, seemingly bypassing the town like the trucks.

  She entered a doorway along a narrow street and climbed a steep flight of uneven stairs, her breath rasping in her throat. As she reached the landing a door opened and her brother Ulf peered out. He beckoned her in and closed the door.

  ‘Do you have them?’ she asked, slumping into a chair. She was struggling for breath, her face a pallid grey and her eyes narrowed to pinpoints.

  He nodded and took a twist of paper from his pocket. ‘Only when you have to,’ he reminded her. ‘When the pain is too much.’ He said it each time he gave her the painkillers, but the intervals between her asking for more were getting shorter all the time. Very soon the tablets would fail to make any difference at all.

  She took the paper with trembling hands and undid the twist. A tiny tablet slid into her palm, and with a brief nod she put it between her lips and swallowed, her fleshless throat working to push the painkiller down. She smiled. It was too soon for the tablet to have worked, but the act of swallowing seemed somehow to work its magic on her. She carefully re-twisted the paper and placed it in her coat pocket.

  ‘Let me look at you,’ he said softly, touching her face with a gentle hand. She pushed his hand away with a gentle shushing sound. The clinic had already explained that her exposure years ago to a range of deadly toxins had eaten away at her internal organs and left precious little to save. All Ulf could do was try to make life as bearable as possible.

  He poured some of the good coffee he got from a porter at the hospital, and watched as Sylvia breathed in the heavy aroma. She didn’t come here often, although he’d tried repeatedly to get her to share the flat with him, to reduce the burden of a lonely life without her husband. But she always refused stubbornly.

  ‘No news of Claus?’ He had never cared for her husband, contemptuous of his work for the Stasi – the Staatssicherheitsdienst – East German Security; the same organization which had employed her too, until the Wall came down. But he always asked. Claus had been away ever since, God alone knew where. Running from his enemies, most likely. Or dead.

  Sylvia put her mug down and reached inside her bag. Placed the black mobile phone and blood-red passport in front of him. ‘Can you sell these?’ she asked him.

  Ulf stared at them in astonishment. He poked the phone with a stubby finger and saw a winking green light. Some of the better-placed army officers carried them down at the hospital in Freienfelde. Kids, too – even the ones with no money. Handys, they called them.

  ‘Where the hell did you get these?’ He didn’t possess one himself, but understood the basic functions. This one, with a picture screen and lots of little images, looked as if it could track a rocket all the way to the moon.

  ‘Old Wilhelm found them down by the border. He wants you to sell them and share the money. He’s afraid to try in case he gets ripped off.’

  ‘Have you shown them to anyone else?’

  She shook her head. ‘I was too scared.’

  ‘God, the old fool must be getting senile!’ he muttered. ‘It’s a good job you didn’t use it. They can track these things from space. Thirty thousand metres up and a satellite tells them just where you’re calling from. “Yes, Commander, we have an old lady in Schwedt, a nowhere spot on the bloody map, and she’s using a stolen phone to call her friends around the world.”’ He sighed guiltily. He was exaggerating. Anyway, who would she have called? He flicked open the passport, his tone softer. ‘Sorry. I’m worried about you, that’s all. These things, they’re like gold dust in the
right places. But if you got caught with it . . .’

  He picked up the phone again and tapped some keys. A list of numbers scrolled up the small screen, showing which ones had been dialled last. Three were to the same number, and began with an overseas code, 00 44. He seemed to recall the number 44 was for the United Kingdom. No doubt he would soon find out if he dialled it. But was it safe?

  Then he recalled that these things had a message facility, like ordinary landline phones. He played with the keys until he found the voicemail. It held one message. If the date setting was correct, it had been left nearly two days ago. ‘Listen,’ he said earnestly, placing a reassuring hand on Sylvia’s. ‘We’d get virtually nothing from those thieves at the station. They’d rip us off – or worse. But maybe the owner would pay something to get them back – especially the passport.’ He tapped the phone. ‘This might help me find them.’

  ‘How will you know you have the owner?’

  That was something he didn’t want to think about. ‘I won’t,’ he admitted. If the wrong people heard about this, he could end up as a guest of the police – or worse, in a muddy ditch courtesy of the local Mafiya . . . and with no money to help Sylvia. He was already having problems getting the painkillers; the man who supplied him was becoming more greedy and threatening as he sensed Ulf’s desperation. In fact Ulf was sure the man had heard of Sylvia’s past and would one day use that knowledge to demand more money.

  He re-read the passport. It was of little help to him; the section at the back under the heading ‘Emergencies’ had been scratched through, maybe as a precaution, although he thought doing that was probably illegal. Maybe a wife, brother or sister no longer available to help, taken by death or divorce.