Immediately the Iranian’s face blossomed into an oily smile. With a voice that was amplified a hundred times, he answered in his native tongue.
‘What’s he say?’ Schwartz said, his turn to look baffled.
‘He said Kreuzberg, the Turkish quarter, where he lives,’ Tallis said, regarding Clay with a satisfied ‘go figure’ expression. He followed it up by turning expectantly to Schwartz.
‘Police have already turned the area over,’ Schwartz said.
‘Ach,’ Alia said with a world-weary smile, ‘so that’s why all the banging on doors.’
Hardly a discreet approach, Tallis thought.
The conversation disintegrated. They left not long afterwards, Clay and Tallis to the luxurious marble and leather charm of the Adlon Hotel, Schwartz to his flat in Tiergarten. Tallis said goodnight to Clay, entered his room and silently changed out of his clothes and into a pair of Cargo trousers, sweatshirt, leather jacket and sneakers. He stuffed his wallet with euros.
By twelve forty-five the following morning he was back out alone with a rucksack on his back, heading along Unter den Linden towards the urban delights of Alexanderplatz. From the main square he dropped down into Alexanderstrasse and followed the road south towards and along the glistening River Spree, and Friedrichshain with its collection of nightclubs and sleazy student hangouts, and a little place recommended to him a long time ago by a former police colleague ‘if ever he felt lonely in Berlin’.
There amid the nightlife he did what he did best. He listened. He slipped into conversation. He talked. He chatted up. He greased palms. He lied. He moved on and gave promises he could not keep. Wired, he left yet another club and entered a brothel, where he briefly stood enthralled. Embarrassed that he wasn’t better dressed, he wondered whether he’d crossed from one vortex into another. Sleek, opulent, with rows of leather-lined booths where girls drank and laughed with their customers, the venue was a haven of sophistication and decadence, and nothing like the knocking shops he’d encountered in a strictly professional capacity in Birmingham. No wonder it had come with a full recommendation. He slipped the rucksack from his back.
A girl who introduced herself as Ivonne swayed towards him. Statuesque, with languid blue eyes and shoulder-length ash-blonde hair, she wore a simple, sleeveless black dress, modestly cut, and red stilettos. ‘May I help?’ she said, speaking German.
‘Is there some place we can talk?’ Tallis replied faultlessly.
‘Of course.’ She smiled towards the booths.
‘Somewhere more private,’ he murmured.
‘As you wish.’ She met his eye. ‘Would you like a drink first?’
He declined. She smiled again, inclined her head, blue eyes sharpening. She seemed on the point of saying something, possibly to inform him of the range of services on offer, but changed her mind and led him past the booths to a grand staircase with a polished walnut handrail and ornate ironwork. Inset into the wall at intervals were sculptures of naked men and women in a variety of sexual positions.
At the top, a long corridor with doors off. Lighting low. Scent of musk permeated the
air-conditioned atmosphere. Ivonne paused outside one of the rooms next to a painting of a woman giving head to a man. Producing a key, she slipped it into the lock, opened the door and stepped aside, insisting with her gaze that he enter first.
At a glance he took in his surroundings: two easy chairs, table in between; against one wall a wide bed with fresh white linen sheets and plump pillows, panic button above the headboard, thick carpet, mirrored ceiling, door off to an en suite bathroom. Nothing seedy or sordid, he thought, idly wondering how much a screw in such a place would cost.
Ivonne slipped off her shoes and, sitting on the end of the bed, crossed one leg lazily over the other giving him a glimpse of smooth thigh and stocking top.
He took a chair, studied her more closely. She had a wide forehead, smooth dewy skin, and though her mouth was small there was a sexy curve to the top lip. He smiled. ‘I’m looking for someone.’
‘You are a police officer?’ No edge, no concern, a straightforward question.
‘No.’
She shrugged lightly. With complete control and composure, she slid further up the bed and on to her side, propping herself up on one elbow, her chin cupped in one hand, facing him. For a big-boned woman, she moved with easy grace. He wondered why she hadn’t yet asked him for money.
‘Two people, really,’ he continued. ‘An American, guy by the name of Bruce Fitz, and a good-looking black girl.’ He gave descriptions of both.
Ivonne looked at him languidly, smoothed a hand down her impressive body. ‘Do you think it’s a little hot in here?’
‘I’m good.’
‘Really?’ Ivonne laid one French-manicured hand against her forehead. ‘I think it is very warm. Please,’ she said, smiling, ‘take off your jacket, at least.’ For a second he thought he’d misheard. ‘Here, I will help,’ she said, making a move towards him.
‘It’s OK,’ he said, peeling off the leather as fast as he could and dumping it on the floor.
‘That’s better,’ Ivonne said, a sleepy, dissolute look entering her eyes.
‘So either of these people mean anything to you? Perhaps the girl?’
‘You have a name?’
‘Sorry, no.’
‘We have a few black girls looking for work, some from Kenya. Most do not meet our high standards,’ Ivonne said with a seductive smile.
‘Anyone like that working here?’
Ivonne let out a low languorous sigh, closed her eyes and fell silent.
He smiled, half bewildered, half amused at being played. This was one of the weirdest situations he’d ever found himself in. Without a word he pulled the sweatshirt off over his head, and chucked it on the bed.
Ivonne slowly opened her eyes, took her time admiring the view. With a sparkling smile, she announced a reply in the negative.
‘Anyone come looking here lately for work?’
‘Not that I remember.’
Waste of time, he thought, out of his seat and deftly stretching across and reaching for his top. Fast as a lizard’s tongue, Ivonne shot out a hand and caught his wrist. ‘But I know your American,’ she said, her blue eyes connecting with his.
He held her gaze, saw the breath quicken in her chest, her top lip moist. ‘Tell me,’ he murmured.
She released her grip, which was surprisingly tight and left a mark on his skin. He sat back down and considered how many more items of clothing it would cost him, and what the final reckoning would be.
‘How do you know him?’
She arched an eyebrow. How do you think? the gesture inferred.
‘Does he come here often?’
‘He’s not a regular, but when he’s in Berlin, maybe twice a year, he visits.’
‘How long have you worked here?’
‘Four, five years. I started when I was a student. It’s good money and the clientele are very nice.’
‘And this guy, Fitz, likes black girls?’
She stared down at his sneakers. He flickered a smile, removed them and slipped off his socks for good measure.
‘Especially black girls,’ she said with a nimble smile.
So Fitz’s abductor had done her homework. ‘Seen him recently?’
‘Three, maybe four days ago.’
‘Did he say anything about meeting anyone?’
She shrugged, inclined her head and pouted a kiss.
With an amused sigh, he deftly removed his trousers and sat back down.
Ivonne patted the bed. ‘You could sit here, if you like.’
‘I’m good.’ He smiled. ‘Thank you,’ he added politely.
‘He did not mention anyone specific.’
Fearing a dead end, and down to his last vestige of clothing, he decided to change course. ‘Know a guy called Bilal, an Albanian?’
Ivonne’s attractive features tightened. ‘Everyone knows this man. He is very cruel,
very unpredictable.’
‘Where does he operate?’
‘All over Europe.’
‘I mean in Berlin.’
‘He used to have apartments near Strausberger Platz, but there was some problem there a few years ago, guy got killed, one of his pimps, and he moved east, to the other side of the city.’
‘Where?’
She told him an area he didn’t know so well, near Charlottenburg.
‘Know any of his girls?’
Ivonne’s voice rang with sudden laughter. ‘He keeps them under lock and key. They’re mostly girls trafficked from the Balkans.’
His mind flicked back to Dario, to his cold execution. There was definitely a Balkan thread running through the tapestry, but every time he gave it a tug it seemed to unravel. What was it about the country that placed it as a central part of the plan? he wondered. He’d heard along the grapevine that a shadow protection operation had been set up during the war years, the spy equivalent of witness protection. Used by the Secret Intelligence Service, it was established to protect informers, including some who had carried out truly evil acts. He didn’t like it but recognised that, sometimes, horrible people had to be protected to persuade them to testify against even more horrible people. He held the thought, considered whether it had a bearing on the current situation. Maybe. Maybe not. Then he remembered Diamond’s warning, the rise of ethnic tensions again, the rumble of discontent.
He leant towards Ivonne so that his face was seductively close to hers.
‘If you wanted to hold someone captive in the city, where would you take them?’
‘Hold someone captive?’ she drawled.
‘Against their will.’
She reached out, ran a finger across his collarbone and down his chest. ‘I heard once that this Bilal you speak of kept a woman for a week near the docks as punishment for trying to run away.’ Her face suddenly darkened, her voice, drained of energy and colour, halting as she spoke. ‘I heard she was tortured. They did unspeakable things to her. Cops found her body in the Spree a month later.’
‘Where exactly was she held? Do you remember?’
Ivonne’s lovely eyes drifted to his lower regions and his Calvin Klein briefs. Strip poker suddenly took on a whole new dimension.
By four-thirty that morning Tallis had a locale and a location. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had.
At that time establishments were running out of steam, the area already assuming a sleepy disposition. There were few late-night revellers, most having already retired for the night.
Within a few streets, and on the borders of Lichtenberg, the landscape changed dramatically. There were no lights, the way ahead illuminated by the stuttering glow of a three-quarter moon. A fine breeze lifted the air, blowing about empty plastic bags and other detritus.
Tallis found himself in a maze of narrow broken-down streets flecked with empty houses, the odd burnt-out car and lock-ups covered in graffiti. Gleaming in the night sky, a crane extinct and forbidding. A handful of people of indeterminate sex shuffled past. Instinctively he crossed over into the shadows. Criminality blew in on the breeze.
Next, metal gates with padlocks, topped off with razor wire, and uneven ground. Fractured concrete punctuated by tufts of grass. Abandoned warehouses, expired docks and wasteland. Every step reminded him of the backwaters of Moscow, the old Communist influence plain to see in the bleak, post-industrial architecture. He stumbled on over ground that looked at intervals as though something had bitten a huge chunk out of the earth. Bricks and broken bottles and rubble littered the ravaged terrain.
Taking out a torch, he worked his way through a row of disused buildings, investigating for signs of life, the only human activity the odd snoring tramp and a group of foul-mouthed youngsters off their faces on drugs and booze. It proved a fruitless and thankless task. And yet, of all the people he’d talked to that night, two, including Ivonne, had suggested that the area was more than worth his attention. They must have been screwing with him, and he did not mean in the literal sense.
He was on open land, the ground cratered as though someone had shelled it. Suddenly he missed his footing and stumbled, hitting the dirt with his palms extended. At once, two German shepherds, running free, tore out from the darkness and threw themselves snapping and snarling against a chain-link fence, the spectre of an old factory protected behind. Startled, the raucous sound of the dogs lashing his ears, he glanced up and caught sight of a female form silhouetted in the light of the moon, then disappear. Slowly, slowly, he rolled the rucksack off his back, and withdrew an image intensifier from inside a pocket. Putting the scope to his eye, he pointed it in the direction of the factory and where he’d last seen the figure. There were no signs of movement other than from the dogs, no trace of light, nothing to suggest that what he’d seen was real. And yet…
The disused factory clearly had some purpose, otherwise there would be no need for protection. He swung the scope round, trying to work out a method to gain entry now that his presence was already well and truly noted. Short of climbing the chain-link fence, and inviting the mutts to dismember him, he couldn’t really see a way round, then he noticed an adjoining building bolted on to one section of the factory. It didn’t necessarily mean that he could cross from one to the other, but it was worth a shot. Only one hitch in the plan: it entailed clambering across a short area of wall that dropped down into a canal. One false move and he’d plummet ten or so metres into the dark, brackish waters.
He scrambled to his feet, moved in a half crouch and circled the buildings in a wide arc, stopping at frequent intervals to scan the area and listen for company, the grumbling canines having retreated to the bowels of the factory. He heard nothing other than the sound of his own shallow breathing. With a light tread, he advanced towards the wall. Moonlight glinted off the surface of the canal, which looked like freshly drilled oil.
He took a deep breath. No Spiderman, he reckoned he had seven metres to cover with only a narrow ledge and the odd handhold where the brickwork was dodgy. If he could negotiate the wall, the rest was relatively easy, the entrance to the building an empty hole where a window had once been. The plan did not encompass the return journey. He’d think about that once he was in.
Pushing the image intensifier into a deep pocket in his trousers, and dumping the rucksack on the broken ground, he took out a Swiss army knife from inside his leather. Top of the range, with two lethal blades, it was also a thirty-two gigabyte memory stick with Bluetooth and laser facility, security protected by the owner’s fingerprint. At that particular moment he was concerned only with its cutting efficiency. If either German shepherd attacked, he’d have no choice but to kill.
To make himself as lightweight as possible, he dispensed with his jacket and, turning sideways, stepped crab-like up on to the wall, fingers reaching for any indentation, flattening his stomach and the left side of his face against the brickwork. Slowly, painfully, he inched his way along and, where there were no handholds, he dug his nails into the crumbling mortar. The balls of his feet felt on fire and every muscle of his body tensed, the strain in his neck and shoulders immense. With each footfall he felt the canal waiting for him, jaws open.
The breeze picked up, gusting underneath his shirt, displacing and almost unbalancing him. He paused, slowed his breathing and pressed the centre of his torso against the crumbling masonry. All his weight seemed to hang on the tips of his fingers. At any moment he could lose his grip, stumble and fall.
At last he monitored a slight change in the arrangement of bricks. Heartened, he squeezed along another step and then another, his fingers curling, pulling him through the gap. Extending and lowering his left arm, he felt floorboards. Quiet relief seeped out of him. About to lever himself inside, a shot rang out, parting the hair on his head, packing heat. He instinctively ducked, lost his balance and, with his arms and legs flailing, he tumbled into the murk below.
In all the time we had spent together I’d never tol
d Thomas the whole story. How could I? Where would I begin? He knew as much as I needed him to know: that I had been trafficked out of my country in the aftermath of the war. Now that I needed his help I described the dark horrors contained within me. I told him about Sabina.
‘We have to rescue her,’ I rushed on blindly.
Thomas stroked my cheek, his face sad and pale in the early-morning light. ‘Oh, my love.’
‘Will you help?’ I tried to keep the plea from my voice. In my experience, if you show a man you are desperate the more cruel and distant he can be.
‘I’m not sure how, Anna.’ Thomas let his gaze drop from my eyes and chewed his lip. For a left-wing radical, he appeared to have trouble putting theory into practice, I thought.
‘I have a plan,’ I said with eagerness. ‘I will get word to Sabina.’
‘How? You said that she was closely guarded.’
This was true. ‘I will think of something,’ I said.
‘But her pimp might find out.’
‘He won’t. I’ll make certain.’
‘You could make things dangerous for her,’ Thomas warned. ‘You realise that, don’t you?’
What do you know of danger? I thought, with your cosy, self-serving life and well-mannered students. ‘You will pose as a client.’
‘What?’ His blue German eyes shot wide.
‘You will approach the Albanian, tell him that you wish to sleep with her…’
‘Anna, I cannot…’
‘You can and you will,’ I said, fighting an intense urge to slap Thomas hard across his cowardly face. ‘Meanwhile, I will allow myself to be picked up…’
‘As a prostitute?’ Thomas was aghast.
‘I have done it before,’ I reminded him. Just then I thought of Bilal. Cold fingers of fear scrabbled up my spine. If he ever found out I would suffer a truly painful death.
‘Yes, and this man will recognise you.’
I let out a laugh. ‘Do you know how many women pass through his sordid fingers? How many he has abused and killed? I am one of thousands. He will not remember me.’
Thomas grabbed the tops of my arms, digging his thumbs into the soft flesh. For the first time in his life he hurt me. I felt something unknowable stir inside.
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