On the far side of the square there was a high security gate running from the walkway to the outer wall of the Alte Nationalgalerie. The walkway extended just a little past this, where it abutted a low, curved building right on the edge of the river.
He scurried towards it, seeing the fud in the ponytail fumble hopelessly at the locked barrier.
‘Aye. There’s your dinner,’ he muttered to himself
Parlabane ran along the roof of the curved stone structure. It looked like some kind of admin office for the rest of the island. It was too small to be another gallery, but unfortunately too high for him to drape down from. Fortunately, there was yet more building work in progress on the other side of the security barrier, a steel shipping container only a short drop beneath.
From there he had to navigate a maze of construction machinery, skips, pallets of building materials and treacherously steep-sided excavations. He used his phone as a torch so as not to have escaped these bastards only to kill himself down a pile shaft.
He stopped to catch his breath and to consider his course. He was conscious that his pursuers might have a better knowledge than he did of where this building site would allow him to emerge. He had to find an exit that they didn’t anticipate.
A railway line ran above and to his right, creating a narrow channel between its high walls and the back of the gallery. He was wondering whether there was a way up to it when the phone buzzed in his hand.
The screen told him it was Mairi, her face smiling up at him from his palm. He had snapped it in the kitchen of her flat in Hoxton the day she hired him, one picture he had asked permission to take. She looked composed and confident, and he really hoped that was how she would sound when he pressed Answer.
I wasn’t Mairi who spoke. It was a male voice, guttural and low. Jowly.
Bawjaws.
‘I have your woman.’
‘I think you’ll find she’s her own woman, slabberchops,’ he replied, anger putting steel in his voice where otherwise it would be tremulous.
‘So you do not care about her. I am mistaken.’
‘The relevant point here is that you sure as shit don’t care about her, so why don’t we cut to the cum-shot. It’s me you’re interested in, so I’m guessing you’d like to trade.’
‘You are very correct, Mister—’
‘How about you tell me your name first.’
‘You can call me Boris.’
‘I could call you Fudnugget as well, but I’m guessing that’s not your real name either.’
Boris let this slide.
‘If you want her back, you come to Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. Be there in—’
‘No. I don’t know where that is, and I’m not walking into an ambush.’
‘This is not a negotiation,’ Boris told him testily.
‘Yes it is. You’ve been chasing me all over this city for hours like I stole your briefcase or something, so let’s not pretend you’re the only one holding what the other wants.’
‘Where, then?’
‘Somewhere public, where I can see you coming and I can see that she’s okay.’
‘I only want to talk.’
‘We’re talking now. What is it you want to know? Where is Heike Gunn? Afraid I can’t help you with that one. Why are you looking for her anyway?’
Parlabane didn’t expect to get a useful answer, but he was buying a moment to think. He needed to come up with somewhere he knew, so that he had some idea of the environment he would be walking into.
‘I am not looking for her,’ Boris replied. ‘Perhaps you should learn some German.’
Parlabane didn’t catch his meaning, though he had been feeling faintly embarrassed at the fact that most of the Berliners he spoke to had been at least competent in English, while just about the only fragment he had absorbed of their mother tongue was their all-purpose hail and farewell greeting, Tschüss.
‘How about we meet at the Sony Centre, Potsdamer Platz?’ Boris suggested. ‘Ideal for tourists,’ he added witheringly.
Parlabane was still thinking of a rendezvous point that would give him a chance of at least ensuring Mairi got away. Unfortunately, as his time spent in this city could be measured in hours, that didn’t make for much of a list.
There was one place on it that leaped to mind, though.
‘The Hauptbahnhof,’ he said, having switched to the U-Bahn there after taking a train in from Schönefeld airport. ‘I want to be able to see her get on a train and away from you.’
Bawjaws thought about it, then agreed rather quicker than Parlabane would have liked.
‘Okay. Hauptbahnhof.’
‘I’ll meet you in the main hall, ground level, at the entrance with the horse statue outside.’
Parlabane was thinking he could raise the alarm with the station staff as soon as Mairi was brought in under visible duress. Unfortunately Boris wasn’t having it.
‘You are right that this is a negotiation, but you are not negotiating with an idiot.’
‘So what’s your counter-offer?’
‘You take a train from Friedrichstrasse. It will arrive on platform sixteen, where we will be waiting. I do not know in which car you arrive, so when I see you on the platform I release your woman. She can get on the train before it leaves. She goes free, you come to us.’
‘Okay. I get off the train, she gets on it. Alone,’ Parlabane added.
‘Alone, yes. But let this be clear: if you try to get back on the train, or if you run before it leaves, someone will get on the train with her, and he will cut her open before she can call for help. After that, we will catch you anyway. You understand?’
‘Yes, I understand,’ Parlabane replied. ‘Your English is very good,’ he added acidly, then hung up.
It wasn’t exactly a zinger of a comeback, but from what he had seen of the main station earlier that day, he reckoned he just might be able to conjure up a better one.
Travel Agency
We had just finished soundchecking when Jan stepped out from the back of the stage, shimmying between Rory’s keyboard stand and Damien’s amp rack with a self-satisfied look that told me his friend Charlie was in the wings. He was holding a white A4 envelope and heading for where Heike and I stood, a winning smile on his chops.
‘Hey, my superstar ladies. Air Jan has got you both seats on a flight to Milan tomorrow, so some extra time in bed, a break from the bus, and an extra day in Milan while we break our journey in Nice, okay?’
He opened the envelope and handed us each a printout with flight details and a booking reference for online check-in.
‘What about us?’ Rory asked.
Jan slapped him playfully on the shoulder.
‘You’re not pretty enough. You’re pretty, Rory, but the cut-off is very high.’
I felt quite self-conscious right then, wondering if this might not cause resentment. That was until I remembered to ask myself why Heike needed a companion to take a short flight and spend one extra night in Milan. My gender was the deciding factor here: it just wasn’t for the reasons Rory thought.
Heike was gazing in my direction, holding the printout like it was court evidence. Neither of us was buying this.
Without a word, we both headed for the ladies’ toilets, where we knew there would be no one else in earshot.
‘He bought me a train ticket to Barcelona for a non-existent interview,’ she said. ‘And now I’m flying to Milan because I’m tired?’
‘I was booked on that train to Barcelona too. I slept in because I was hungover. I wasn’t meant to be on the bus that day. Neither of us were supposed to see those girls.’
‘Because they’re hookers,’ Heike said. ‘And Jan knew I’d cause trouble about it.’
‘But how could he know the guys wouldn’t object?’
‘The guys wouldn’t know what they were looking at any more than you did at the time. He says they’re merch girls, who’s going to argue? Even if the guys did think something was off, he knew they wouldn’t
be sufficiently empowered or inclined to rock the boat. Safe to say that these days I’m both.’
‘Why wouldn’t you have bought that they were merch girls?’
‘Maybe I would, but Jan wasn’t taking any chances. There were hookers servicing that wanker Dean and some of the Bad Candy road crew on previous tours. It was particularly bad when we went round Europe supporting Pale Strangers. That band were fucking sleazebags. I kicked up a stink, but nobody really cared what I had to say.’
‘Could this be bigger than just a few prostitutes?’ I asked her.
‘Bigger how?’
‘Bordeaux to Barcelona. Madrid to Milan. Those journeys were international. There haven’t been any merch girls on any of our city-to-city trips.’
‘No, you’re right. And you said Jan was holding their passports? I’m starting to wonder whether a rock band’s tour bus wouldn’t be the perfect cover for trafficking girls around Europe.’
Heike gave me a steely look, which I met in kind. In that moment we formed an alliance.
‘I think I’ll be setting an alarm to catch that early bus tomorrow morning,’ she said. ‘How about you?’
I folded the piece of paper Jan had given me and ripped it in two.
Down in the U-Bahnhof at Midnight
Friedrichstrasse station was quiet, though the platform did fill up a little more the longer he waited. It was after twelve, and he guessed the frequency of the trains had dropped significantly. This meant the Hauptbahnhof, one stop ahead, would be quiet too, and there would be no element of doubt as to which train he was arriving on.
Parlabane chose a position roughly halfway along the platform, augmenting his memories of the Hauptbahnhof from earlier that day with images he was able to search on his phone. It was like an exploded diagram: spaces and surfaces, shapes and angles vivid and open. Escalators zigzagged between floors, cylindrical glass lift shafts punched through concrete, vast grids of glass glistened from the office buildings bracketing the central concourse, while columns, girders and suspension cables proudly advertised their roles. Getting off his train from the airport, he had considered it an adult version of a children’s soft-play area. Tonight, however, he profoundly appreciated that this was going to be very hard play.
As the train rolled into Friedrichstrasse, he took care in choosing where he boarded. Halfway along the platform at Friedrichstrasse didn’t necessarily correspond to precisely halfway along the platform at the Hauptbahnhof, but he could move back or forth along the carriage as required.
As the train pulled out, an announcement reminded him that his destination was only one stop away. Parlabane didn’t know how long it would take, only that he could have done with it being longer. He didn’t feel ready, but how could he? He tried not to think about what might be happening to him or to Mairi within the hour if he didn’t pull this off, though just a glimpse was enough to sharpen his instincts. He could only afford one outcome here.
He felt the train slow as it glided into Hauptbahnhof. His brain began rapidly taking in and analysing information, consciously and at a more primal level. Platform sixteen was sparsely populated, so it was easy to identify Boris and his team from the narrowing distance. He had men positioned at the tops of both sets of escalators, the man himself next to the first of the cylindrical lift shafts. That’s where Mairi was: held behind the glass until he stepped from the train and made himself visible.
Her face was anxious, fearful. Their eyes met as the train passed, and he gave her a wink. He hoped he looked more confident than he felt, and that it came off as a cocksure gesture rather than a nervous twitch.
She looked puzzled. He’d settle for that. It was an improvement on terror and borderline despair.
He had estimated pretty well. His carriage was going to stop fairly close to where platform sixteen overhung the central concourse, which stretched towards a towering arch of glass above the northern entrance two floors below. He chose the far-away door, putting him closer to the second lift. Mairi was about thirty yards distant, inside the other one.
Parlabane let all the other passengers get out first, then waited just a little longer. He wanted to limit the time between showing himself and the train departing again, denying them the chance and the temptation to improvise.
He strode forward, making eye contact with Boris, who stepped aside to let Mairi out of the lift, accompanied by Spike. Mairi gazed towards Parlabane, her expression a mix of helplessness and apology, as though this was somehow her fault.
Parlabane nodded towards the open doors, urging her to comply. She looked away and disappeared inside.
Spike stayed right at the doors. He was now wearing a jacket over his black T-shirt. He looked to Parlabane and briefly opened it to show why. A blade glinted inside: short, stubby and doubtless razor sharp. It was the kind of knife with which he could quickly and repeatedly stab someone using a minimum of conspicuous action.
The doors hadn’t begun to close, but already Boris’s men were making their move. The guy with the ponytail was approaching from the lifts, while from the escalators Parlabane could see another one striding towards him. He was troll-like, both facially and in build, resembling a squat and steroid-pumped Michael Gove. It was a truly horrible vision, but on the plus side, it would make it a lot easier if Parlabane ended up having to punch the guy really hard in the face. Indeed, remembering to stop and run off would be the main hazard.
The doors closed and the train began to pull away. Parlabane urged it to hurry, to speed up. Boris’s men were each less than fifteen yards away and closing, Spike joining the hunt now that Mairi was out of the equation.
He glimpsed Mairi’s face one last time as her carriage passed, the train picking up speed. He just wasn’t sure it was picking it up fast enough.
Ten yards. Eight.
The rearmost carriage whipped past him, and suddenly his path was clear. It just wasn’t clear to his reception committee, though perhaps it should have been: the fuckers had forced him on to the rails once already today.
Parlabane leaped down from the platform and across the tracks, taking care to hurdle the third rail. There was a narrow concrete pathway on the far side. Horizontal steel railings ran along it, affording a clear view down towards the main concourse. He could still feel the floor beneath him vibrate as the train departed.
Parlabane vaulted over the rails and climbed on to a girder extending away from the platform. He gripped a steel shaft forming a giant window frame in the office towers that bookended the hall. Passengers wandered obliviously beneath him. It was too high to jump.
He checked his footing and hopped down on to a suspended departure board. It wobbled and lurched under his weight, but it held. A second later he had draped down on to solid concrete.
He glanced back to see Gove-Troll careering down the escalator. Above him, Ponytail was clambering over the railings.
Parlabane sprinted for the broad staircase that descended to ground level. He slalomed two drunks in Bayern tops then gripped the handrail as he took the steps ten at a time. There were more Bayern fans towards the bottom, four abreast on the stairs, arms around each other’s shoulders.
Scheisse.
He vaulted over the barrier on to the up escalator, catching his ankle on the moving handrail. Glass and steel spun around him as he tumbled to the deck in a tangle of limbs. He’d rattled his head on the edge of a stair too. Blood was running into his right eye, closing it. Through his left he could see Gove-Troll bounding towards the top of the staircase as the escalator took him back up
He climbed to his feet again and stomped down the rising stairs. A few seconds later he was on mercifully unmoving ground, the wall of glass ahead of him. His thigh muscles screamed at him as he sprinted towards the doors.
He barrelled through them and out into the warm air. Across the concrete he could see a taxi rank. Mercifully there was a cab waiting, and the driver wasn’t even outside having a fag with his mates.
Less mercifully, the
driver locked the doors as he tried to get in. He babbled something Parlabane didn’t understand, then gestured to his face. He remembered he was bleeding. The guy thought he was a nutter, or at least that he was going to bleed all over his seats.
Back at the station entrance, Gove-Troll was bustling through another clutch of Bayern fans at the doors.
‘Please,’ he begged, pulling on the handle. ‘I was attacked. Look.’
The driver glanced towards the station, then suddenly unlocked the doors.
Parlabane sprawled across the back seat as the car pulled away.
‘FC Hollywood,’ the driver said with distaste.
Parlabane watched Gove-Troll pull up as he realised his quarry was fled, Spike almost crashing into him from the back. They stared in impotent frustration at the departing taxi.
Tschüss.
He took out his phone and dialled Mairi, clenching a fist in elated relief when she answered.
International Incident
We didn’t need to wait for the bus to encounter more of Jan’s ‘merch girls’. I was fairly sure I saw several of them draping themselves over a bunch of suits in the hotel bar when we came back from the gig that night. We were staying in some corporate place, but neither girls nor suits looked like delegates at a conference. These guys were high-end: expensively dressed and cordoned off in a private area of the bar by their own personal security. The girls were dressed to look like they belonged in such high-rolling company, but I couldn’t help thinking the designer outfits just made them look even younger and less plausible. One of them was definitely the girl from backstage in Barcelona. I caught her pretending just a bit too hard not to have seen me.
I’d no idea till how late the merch girls were entertaining the boardroom bawbags, but they were up bright and early the next morning, which was obviously dress-down Friday. There were seven of them sitting in the lobby, all back in their Savage Earth Heart T-shirts, and toting their matching rucksacks.
Dead Girl Walking Page 20