Rip Tide

by Stella Rimington

  It took a few minutes for the connection to take root in Richard Luckhurst’s mind, and another hour before he picked up the telephone. But after that things moved fast: just as Sue put the kettle on for tea, Detective Inspector Fontana drove his car into the Luckhursts’ drive and rang the doorbell.

  Chapter 19

  For three weeks, Maria went conscientiously into the UCSO office every morning and spent the day helping Mr Limonides with the accounts, keeping her eyes open for anything out of the ordinary. She wasn’t at all sure what she was looking for. Neither her handsome contact at the British Embassy nor her new boss Berger had been at all precise about what they thought might be going on in the office. ‘Someone taking a nosey interest in the manifests of aid shipments sailing from Athens’ seemed to sum it up, but at the moment there were no shipments being assembled. In fact, not much was going on in the office at all as far as she could see. The only member of staff who seemed to be doing anything interesting or out of the ordinary was Claude, the Frenchwoman, who had just returned from a short visit to Kinshasa. Maria was interested to hear about her trip but Claude was such a dour soul that she made even the most exotic parts of the Third World sound dull.

  Mr Limonides was proving difficult to get to know. He was a model of courtesy, but volunteered no information about himself or his private life. He was a widower, according to Falana, but she didn’t know if he had any family or children; there were no photographs on his desk, and any questions Maria asked that got close to the personal were politely rebuffed. One evening as she was walking to the bus stop near the office after doing some shopping, she caught sight of him in a little taverna, eating a solitary supper, his eyes focused on his plate. Maria thought there was something ineffably sad about the scene and she hurried past before he could look up and see her.

  She saw little of Berger, who seemed busy enough in his office. He didn’t ask to see her and she didn’t want to bother him as she had nothing to report. She had no contact with the British Embassy; she’d been told to report in the first instance to Berger.

  Of the rest of the staff, Katherine Ball was her favourite and the closest to her in age and style. Katherine worked mainly in London as deputy to the charity’s overall director, but she kept a desk in UCSO Athens and visited several times a year for a few days or weeks, depending on what was going on. She was often closeted with Berger, presumably discussing policy matters, but occasionally she walked round the general office, chatting to the staff. When she put her head round the door of the room where Mr Limonides and Maria worked, it was as if a breath of fresh air had blown in.

  For Anastasia and Falana, Katherine’s elegant clothes and easy cosmopolitan chic provided hours of conversation and debate. When from time to time Maria drank her morning cup of coffee with them, she was required to join them in speculating on such important matters as whether Katherine’s shoes could be real Jimmy Choos. Both girls loved to ask Maria questions about London, which she was happy to answer, and about herself, which she was not. But she had no difficulty at all in diverting their interest in her life by questioning them about theirs, which led to lengthy accounts of their favourite clubs, their favourite music, and their favourite boyfriends. Anastasia was the more outgoing of the two and she was insistent that Maria should join them and some friends for a night out, an invitation that Maria had managed so far to find an excuse not to accept. But she had a sinking feeling that in the interests of politeness and good relations, she wouldn’t be able to duck the invitation for ever.

  The only thing at all out of the ordinary happened one evening in her third week when Maria got back to her apartment block after her day at UCSO. Madame Coco was standing in the foyer, sucking on a hand-rolled cigarette not much thicker than a toothpick. A small woman of indeterminate age – probably in her seventies – Coco looked after the building with the gossipy vigilance of a Parisian concierge; she also cleaned some of the residents’ flats, including Maria’s.

  ‘You had visitors,’ she said. ‘A couple.’

  ‘When was that, Coco?’ asked Maria, wondering if her parents had come round. They’d only been here once, when she’d first moved in, and Coco had never met them.

  ‘After lunch.’

  ‘Really?’ That seemed odd; her parents knew she was usually out at that time of day. The faintest suspicion flickered through her mind.

  ‘What did they look like?’

  Cocoa shrugged. ‘I didn’t see them. Mr Pharmakes told me they’d been here.’ He was a retired gentleman who lived on the top floor of the building. ‘He came across them in the hall outside your flat.’

  This was odder still. The door to the foyer was kept locked, so non-residents couldn’t simply wander in and out of the building.

  ‘Did he describe them?’

  Cocoa laughed, and stubbed out her cigarette end with a carpet-slippered toe. ‘All he said was that one was pale and the other dark.’

  ‘Which was which?’ Maria asked instinctively.

  Coco shrugged her shoulders. ‘Don’t ask me. And I wouldn’t bother asking Pharmakes. He has cataracts in both eyes.’

  Maria thanked Coco and went up to her flat. The visitors probably had been her parents after all. Her mother was an English rose, with pink skin that easily burned in the sun, while her father was a typical Greek with nutmeg-coloured skin and dark hair.

  But as she let herself into her flat, she still wasn’t satisfied. Why would her parents come here in the middle of the day? It would have to be about something urgent . . . her mother’s sister had been very ill. Maybe it was something to do with that. But surely they would have left a message. Maybe she should ring Bruno Mackay and report this. But he’d probably think she was very green, getting jumpy for no good reason. Don’t be silly, she told herself, even though, when she rang her parents, her mother told her they hadn’t been out all day.

  By the end of the third week, Maria was beginning to wonder how long she would be able to put up with the boredom of this new assignment. The extra money she was being paid by the British Embassy was nice to have, but she didn’t feel that she was doing anything to earn it. Then on the third Tuesday morning, as she was leaning on Falana’s desk drinking her morning coffee and chatting, Berger came out of his office and asked to see her.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he asked as she sat down.

  ‘The job’s fine. But I’m afraid I haven’t uncovered anything.’

  ‘Don’t apologise,’ he said with a laugh. ‘I’d much prefer to be wrong about all this.’

  ‘I can’t say if anything’s going on or not. I certainly haven’t noticed anything. And, to tell you the truth, I don’t know if I ever will.’

  ‘Well, that brings me to what I was going to tell you . . . we’ve got a good chance now to find out, one way or another. Our next shipment is due out in three weeks. I want you to start to build up the manifest.’

  ‘Doesn’t Mr Limonides usually do that?’

  ‘He does, but I’ve got a special project I want him to work on.’ Berger raised one eyebrow. ‘Now, let me give you an idea about this cargo. It’s going to be rather special . . .’

  For the next few days Maria immersed herself in putting together the manifest, and by late Thursday evening she was glad to be finished with it. She had been so busy working that she hadn’t even realised Katherine Ball had gone back to London.

  Maria and Berger had agreed that she would be careful to keep the details of the new shipment secret. She wouldn’t talk about it and she would make sure that all paperwork concerning it was carefully locked up. Manifests should always have been handled in that way but it seemed very likely, given the relaxed atmosphere in the office, that these rules had not been followed.

  This shipment was as special as Berger had indicated. The drugs alone were worth a fortune and included large amounts of liquid morphine and a pharmacist’s range of codeine-based painkillers. More field-hospital kit was going out as well, with surgical apparatus enough to e
quip a decent-sized hospital. There were three high-end Range Rovers, and, most temptingly, $100,000 in cash. Maria carefully noted and valued all of this. None of it was being documented in UCSO’s London office, so that if any information leaked out, it would be clear that it had come from Athens.

  The most important fact about the cargo which Maria had spent the week working on was that it did not actually exist. The details had been planned purely to tempt any spy inside the organisation. The actual cargo of the next UCSO shipment to pass the Horn of Africa would be much less attractive, consisting as it would of foodstuffs – powdered milk, sacks of grain – and vitamins by the gross. Desperately needed by its eventual recipients, but of only of modest resale value and thus not worth the attention of Somali pirates – unless they had been told the cargo was something else altogether.

  Maria picked up her working sheets and the finalised manifest and put them in the top right-hand drawer of her desk. Then she locked it carefully, with the key that she always kept safely in her bag; Berger had had a new lock installed, and the only other key was with him.

  On Friday morning Maria was late into the office – her bus had hit a dog (which, miraculously, had survived); the dog’s owner had threatened the bus driver; the driver had blamed the owner; a crowd had formed; someone had called the police, who took twenty minutes to arrive and then insisted on interviewing the passengers. It all seemed very Greek to Maria, and it was almost ten o’clock when she got to work.

  There was no sign of Mr Limonides. He was probably outside having a fag, thought Maria as she sat down at her desk and checked the drawer. It was still securely locked. She opened it with her keys and checked the pages of the manifest. All present and correct.

  Hers was a new desk, a modern one made of wood laminate and metal, its top a single sheet of laminate supported by the two upright sides. As she unlocked the drawer, the desktop rocked very slightly and slid a little to one side. Puzzled, she pushed one end of the desktop with both hands. It gave again, almost imperceptibly. Odd.

  Maria got up, walked to the door and looked down the corridor. No one in sight. Out on the rear fire escape Mr Limonides stood by himself, mournfully smoking an Egyptian cigarette.

  She returned quickly to her desk. Down on all fours, she peered up at the overhanging desktop. It was attached to the sides at each corner by metal brackets, held in place by two screws. One screw in the corner nearest her was loose and hanging halfway out of its hole; looking more closely, Maria could see fresh scratches in the laminate. Someone had been fiddling with the screws.

  Then she understood. Removing the brackets had freed the desktop; removing the desktop left the top drawer exposed from above. The intruder could have read the papers in the drawer, put them back safely, apparently untouched, and then replaced the desktop. No one would have been any the wiser – if the screws had been put back properly.

  How clever, thought Maria, then felt suddenly chilled as she realised that this must mean there really was a spy here in the Athens office of UCSO.

  Maria went straight away to Berger’s office to tell him about her discovery. But to her dismay she found that the American was taking the day off – he had gone on a long weekend to one of the islands. So, with some hesitation, she rang Bruno Mackay at the embassy, but was answered by his secretary, who explained that Bruno, too, was away for a long weekend. The secretary offered to get Mr Mackay to telephone Maria back but she didn’t want to seem panicky, so she said no, it could wait till Monday.

  Then Mr Limonides returned, and began quietly working on the special report about UCSO’s overheads that Berger had commissioned, while Maria wondered what to do next. There seemed no point in moving the papers in her drawer to a safer place. In one sense the damage had been done; in another, of course, the bait had been taken. But what was supposed to happen next? And how was she meant to narrow down the list of possible suspects?

  Chapter 20

  Anastasia and Falana were waiting for her at a table in the bar. They’d already acquired a pitcher of sangria, and Falana poured out a large glass for Maria as soon as she sat down. The place was noisy, filling up quickly with young people celebrating the start of the weekend. In the background techno dance music throbbed. Not much chance of serious conversation here, thought Maria.

  She had agreed to meet the two girls after Anastasia had bumped into her at lunchtime and asked if she’d join them that evening; caught on the hop, and distracted by the discovery that her desk had been tampered with, Maria had said yes. All afternoon she had kicked herself for agreeing, but having said yes, she didn’t see how she could get out of it without being gratuitously rude.

  She had gone home first, showered and changed into tight jeans and a sparkly top – she was expecting to find the girls done up in their latest finery. She swapped her office shoes for strappy sandals, and her handbag for a little shoulder bag, then she closed the windows, put down the blinds and left her flat.

  ‘Do you always come here?’ Maria now asked.

  Anastasia nodded. ‘We usually have something to eat in this place, then go on to the clubs nearby.’

  They stayed in the bar for an hour or so, sharing various small plates of meze, which were plonked on the table from time to time by passing waiters. The sangria jug gradually emptied and another was acquired. Maria tried to steer the conversation towards their office colleagues but UCSO Athens was devoid of eligible men and the girls had little interest in talking about anything in it beyond Katherine’s clothes. They shared a gentle laugh at the old-fashioned ways of Mr Limonides and they all spoke with envy of Claude’s travels, but beyond that neither of the Greek girls said anything to provide Maria with additional insights into the staff of UCSO.

  After one false start in a new nightclub, which turned out to be for men looking for other men, they moved on to a place called Broadway, which had an enormous dance floor. By the bar, girls gathered in small packs, eyeing groups of young men who were eying them. Maria had been brought up rather traditionally and found all this a bit unnerving. Anastasia and Falana met some friends in the club, most of them young enough to make Maria feel ancient. She nursed a glass of wine while Falana talked with a succession of youths who seemed barely old enough to shave. Anastasia turned out to have a steady boyfriend, and stayed clinched with him on the dance floor. When a small pimply youth offered to buy Maria a drink, she decided it was time to go home.

  Outside the club there was no sign of a taxi, but the doorman pointed out a bus stop a little way down the street and, though it was almost one o’clock, assured her the buses were still running. Before long a half-full bus arrived and she climbed on and sat down in the comparative peace and quiet with a sigh. What a waste of an evening, she thought. Nothing new learned and only a raging thirst and a headache to show for it. At least she had done her bit for good relations with the girls. They had been happy that she’d joined them. Hopefully a repeat performance would not be expected.

  Maria was the only one to get off the bus at her stop. The small shops in the street were closed up and deserted. The night was still, the air heavy. All she could hear was the occasional distant whoosh of a passing car, and the slapping of her sandals against the pavement. Then she heard another sound behind her. It took her a minute to realise it was someone else’s footsteps.

  She was still a good ten minutes’ walk from her flat. As she went on she continued to hear the steps. She turned round once, but couldn’t see anyone. Perhaps they were too far back. But when she stopped to listen, the footsteps stopped as well. Could it have been an echo? No. When she started to walk again, the other footsteps were not in synch with hers.

  Tock tock tock. Still the other steps rang out, but no one caught her up. Maria tried to find this reassuring; if someone were following her, wouldn’t they be drawing closer? Yet she found herself growing alarmed.

  This was not a neighbourhood for late-night revels; the surrounding apartment buildings were all dark. The streetlamps threw
out only a weak, watery light. She could always scream for help – that would certainly wake people up. But doubtless the mysterious stranger behind her would turn out to be some teenager, walking home after a party. How embarrassing that would be.

  She was now just a minute or two from the safety of her flat, but the footsteps were still echoing hers. Was the noise drawing any closer? She couldn’t tell. What should she do? She turned the final corner on to her own street, then quickly reached down and took off her sandals.

  Then she ran, holding the shoes in one hand, barefoot along the pavement. At last she reached her building and stopped, breathless, at the front door to tap in the entry code. As she did so her back crawled and she tried to listen for the sounds of someone else on the street, but all she could hear was the drum-like thumping of her heart.

  Inside the building at last, she closed the outside door firmly behind her. The light to the stairwell was on, which comforted her as she climbed the flight of stairs. She opened her door slowly, still listening.

  Her flat felt stuffy and warm, and she remembered she had closed the windows and the blinds earlier. She went to the fridge to get some cold water, feeling rather silly about the fear she’d felt in the street, now that she was safe. Whoever had been behind her was probably sitting in their own flat around the corner now, blissfully unaware of the scare they’d given her.

  Crossing the sitting room, she went to run a bath. When she flicked the switch just inside the bathroom door, the bulb popped and the room stayed dark. She turned to get another bulb from the kitchen, but the light in the sitting room had gone out as well, leaving the entire flat in darkness. Damn, Maria thought, the fuse must have blown. She edged back out of the bathroom to get the torch she kept in the sitting-room cupboard.

  It was then that she heard a noise behind her. ‘Who’s there?’ she demanded, her stomach suddenly contracting with ice-cold fear.