Charles Cumming - The Trinity Six

‘So, you never told me. Do you work for the British Embassy?’

She smiled, in the way that one might smile at an impertinent stranger. She had been driving, he noticed, at precisely five kilometres beneath the Austrian speed limit. The last thing she needed was a traffic cop pulling them over.

‘Oh no. I am a schoolteacher.’ She turned and saw that Gaddis looked confused. ‘But I help your friends when the telephone call comes through. It is a good arrangement.’

It was one of the strangest remarks he had ever heard. How did such an ‘arrangement’ come about in the first place?

‘So you know what happened to me last night?’ he asked. ‘You know about the shooting?’

This time Eva did not smile. ‘The details of your situation are not my direct concern, Doctor Gaddis. My only job is to make sure that I deliver you safely to your destination. If, on the way, I can help to allay any concerns you might have, or to answer any questions, I am also happy to do this.’

Gaddis looked out of the window. The pale, flat countryside was sliding past like a dream. He craved a cigarette but remembered that he had finished his packet in the park.

‘So where are we going?’ he asked. The ashtray in the car was clean and there was no sign of any cigarettes. ‘What’s the plan?’

Eva took a satisfied intake of breath. The conversation was developing along lines that she had predicted.

‘It’s very simple.’ She overtook a lorry travelling slowly in the lane ahead of them. ‘I am taking you into Hungary where we will stop at Hegyeshalom station. There you will board the train to Budapest. I will return to Austria.’

‘You’re not coming with me?’

He felt embarrassed to have asked the question, to have sounded alarmed. It was as if he had revealed some evidence of cowardice.

‘I am afraid not.’

‘You don’t normally take people all the way?’

Eva raised a matronly eyebrow. ‘Every case is different.’ The response had a tone of censure. ‘Because of a prior arrangement, I need to be back in Vienna before lunchtime. These arrangements were made only in the last few hours. If I had been given more warning, I might have been able to accompany you to the Budapest airport. But it is often the way.’

‘So I just get on a train? How do I get home? Has Tanya planned that far ahead?’

He realized that he sounded rude, but he was tired and fractious. He should have been more grateful to this woman who, after all, had left her home in response to an emergency call in the small hours of the morning. She was putting her life at risk by helping him. But the shock of the night’s events was still vivid to him; he was allowing basic courtesies to slip.

‘Tanya has planned everything,’ Eva said. ‘You simply stay on the train until it terminates in Budapest Keleti. On the platform, you will walk and find a man sitting on a bench wearing a green jacket. He is the next link in your chain. His name is Miklos. He has a beard and will be drinking from a bottle of Vittel water. He has seen your photograph so he will recognize you, even if you do not recognize him. Miklos will then take you to the airport and see that you are flown safely back to London.’

‘That’s extraordinary.’ Gaddis marvelled at the speed at which Tanya had worked, the favours she had called in, the networks she had activated. ‘And if I’m stopped at any point? If the Russians are on to me?’

‘It is a good question.’ Eva conveyed how seriously she was taking it by slowing down slightly and rubbing the back of her neck. ‘I have to tell you that there is very little possibility you will be stopped or asked questions at any point in your journey. Austria is not a police state, Doctor Gaddis. Hungary is not a police state. I have been following the news reports of the incident at Kleines Cafe and no mention has been made of a man fitting your description. Nevertheless, it is possible that the police are buying time and that they have a closed-circuit image of you from the bar. Is this possible?’

‘I don’t know.’ Gaddis was suddenly concerned. It was the one angle that he hadn’t considered. He thought of the Goth at Meisner’s apartment and tried to remember if he had seen a camera bolted to the wall of the cafe. Surely the blanket surveillance of CCTV cameras in public spaces was a uniquely British disease? ‘I don’t think so.’

‘But a member of staff or a customer may have spoken to the police. Again, we cannot be sure. Now, there is no formal customs at the border because of Schengen. If, however, we are stopped by a guard for some reason, you are to say that you are my friend from England and that we are going to Budapest for a few days. You have been staying at my apartment in Vienna since Thursday.’ There was a slight pause. ‘If necessary, we will give the impression that my husband and your wife would rather not know about this.’

It was Eva who blushed, not Gaddis, and he was relieved to see this calm, resourceful woman succumbing to a momentary embarrassment. It brought them closer together.

‘Do I stick to my own name?’

‘At this stage, yes. A new identity has been prepared for you by Miklos. You will leave Hungary using a false passport.’

Gaddis felt so reassured by the arrangements that he allowed himself to close his eyes and to relax briefly as the car sped towards the border. He thought that he saw an army of wind turbines stretching from horizon to horizon but could not be sure if he had been dreaming. The next thing he knew, Eva was pulling into a Soviet-era railway station on the Hungarian side, having crossed the border without need of disturbing him. They were in Hegyeshalom.

‘Wait here, please,’ she said when she saw that he had woken up. By the clock on the dashboard of the car, it was just before nine o’clock in the morning.

‘What’s happening?’

‘I buy ticket.’

He was alone in the deserted car park. A starved cat was scratching around in a small pile of rubbish. Some blue plastic tarpaulins had been piled up next to an old truck which looked as though it hadn’t been driven since the Cold War. Gaddis felt that he had woken up in Russia: a world of crumbling, Communist-era apartment blocks, of railway carriages abandoned on weed-thick sidings, of tangles of loose wire in overhead cables. Everything less neat, everything less manicured. He caught the smell of his own breath and craved some water. Falling asleep had been a mistake. The brief respite had left him feeling more, not less tired.

Eva returned five minutes later armed with a cheese sandwich, a half-litre bottle of water and a ticket to Budapest.

‘You got a return,’ Gaddis pointed out, devouring the sandwich and drinking the water until it was almost finished.

‘You are coming back tomorrow,’ she replied, with a knowing smile. ‘A one-way journey always looks more suspicious. Which reminds me.. ’

She stepped out of the car and opened the boot, returning with a faded leather bag which contained some toiletries, a couple of paperback books and a T-shirt.

‘This is for your journey.’ She closed the door of the car. ‘A foreigner who gets on to a train without a bag may look suspicious. Try to find a seat next to a young person, if you do not wish to be disturbed. They are less likely to bother you with conversation. Within an hour you will be in Budapest. There is absolutely nothing to worry about. I am just sorry that I cannot come with you.’

‘It’s fine,’ Gaddis replied.

‘Could I have your mobile phone please?’ He was not surprised that she had asked. ‘I will take it back to Austria and switch it on in a park near my house. It may distract the people who are following you. They may believe that you are still in Vienna. On the other hand, they may assume that it is a trick. Either way, it is not safe for you to be carrying it. Do you have any further questions?’