Adrian Magson - Deception

Outside, thin rain pattered against the windows, cold and relentless. In the quiet of the room, her breathing was quick, bird-like. It matched the throbbing of a pulse at her temple, visible under the translucent skin marked by the blemishes of old age. But old age wasn’t the problem. She looked down at her hands. They were like a collection of bony sticks; sticks which had lost their strength over the past few months and weeks along with the rest of her body, the disease which had overtaken her turning her into an old woman in no time at all.

A sound outside brought her head up, fear clutching at her breast. Then she relaxed, recognizing old Bendl’s asthmatic coughing. He shuffled down the foul-smelling stairs in the darkness each morning, on his way to the refinery where he worked as a clerk. Like the few who had jobs here, he started early and finished late, eager to work punishing hours for next to nothing, since earning nothing was simply to fade and die.

As the footsteps receded, she wondered what Ulf would say. Her brother was a doctor, although not the kind who could help her. An army medic for many years, he knew a lot about battle wounds but precious little about cancerous growths caused by the toxic air which attacked you as you breathed. But with his part-time job at the hospital, he knew people he could ask. . people with access to drugs which helped manage the pain she was suffering with increasing regularity.

She reached over and picked up the mobile phone, and brushed off a thin smear of mud, where old Wilhelm had handled it.

‘See if Ulf can sell these in town,’ he’d suggested tentatively, pushing the mobile and the slim red book into her hands. He had come straight round after his walk and woken her up, pounding on the door as if his life depended on it. ‘He might even be able to return them to the owner. . for a reward. We can share in whatever he gets.’ He’d gone on to explain where he’d found the jacket and, in the pocket, the mobile phone and the British passport. ‘I would do it myself, but I don’t know who to speak to. I don’t get into town much these days.’

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 cafes 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.

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 cafes, 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-cafe 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.