Tim Stevens - Delivering Caliban

Amsterdam,

Sunday 19 May, 9.45 am

The woman in the beret looked back over her shoulder and John Purkiss registered two things simultaneously.

She was blonde and attractive.

And she was his dead fiancée.

He felt the familiar surge in his chest propelling him forwards, as though he was connected physically with her and needed to be in direct contact with her. Countering this was a voice that screamed in his mind, told him to get a grip.

Purkiss stepped on to the road and wove between the trams and the clangour of the bicycle bells. Amsterdam was a gentle bustle of primitive transport around him, seeming to wash around him like a stream around a rock. He disregarded it, eyes fixed on the woman who had turned away again and was striding with purpose in the direction of the Central Station. Claire wore a mauve beret perched at an angle above her short fair hair, a suede coat tight across her shoulders. He didn’t recognise the clothes, but the gait was hers, there was no question about that: taut, fast, sexy.

The voice in his mind jabbered at him, its words beyond his hearing.

Overhead the iron cast of the sky threatened rain. The Dutch spring morning was as ambiguous as they ever were. Purkiss watched Claire pass a stall where among the usual Amsterdam tourist tat — motifs of tulips and cannabis leaves, Van Gogh and Rembrandt prints — sat a number of incongruous Roman Catholic items. A particularly kitsch row of tea towels portrayed the crucifixion, the Vatican, the Pope with hands clasped.

The Pope…

The voice broke through into his consciousness. Purkiss lurched to one side out of the path of a blaring taxi, spun to view the road he’d just crossed. He pivoted on his heel, scanning the environment in a sweeping motion that took in the spread of the city south of the station.

Damn it. He’d lost him.

As if the thought had somehow sharpened his vision he picked out the tiniest shape in the distance, heading straight for the station’s grand and massive concourse. The head was bowed, the gait almost a sprint.

It was Pope.

Purkiss broke into a run.

*

The man seemed to sense him approaching at the last minute and turned his shoulder a fraction. For an instant Purkiss thought he’d be someone else, another illusion like the one of Claire that had taken him in a few moments ago. But there was no doubt this was Pope, even in the brief glimpse Purkiss caught of his profile. The thin, prominent nose, the high cheekbones that marked him out even in this city of young and good-looking people, the hint of a grey eye not quite catching Purkiss’s: all were unmistakable.

Purkiss was a tall man, two inches or so above Pope’s height. He had the advantage of momentum; Pope had been slowing when he’d noticed Purkiss bearing down. But he couldn’t simply drop Pope by diving on him or aiming a blow at the back of his neck. It was broad daylight outside the largest train station in the largest city in the Netherlands.

Purkiss would have to get close enough to take the man down unobtrusively.

Pope seemed to sense this and turned fully to face Purkiss, adopting the stance of someone preparing for combat: slightly bent knees, head lowered, arms raised at waist height. He stood at the centre of one of the entrances to the station concourse and people bustled past him, occasionally barging him. His eyes were locked on Purkiss’s. Purkiss assumed Pope would want to avoid drawing attention to them just as much as he himself did.

Pope’s hand moved inside his leather jacket as Purkiss closed the final few metres between them, and emerged flashing.

Purkiss stepped aside at the last minute as the blade flashed in an arc across his abdomen, the point catching the edge of his own linen coat; even in the noise of the crowd he heard fabric tear. Pope was right-handed but had swept the blade in a counter-instinctive forehand gesture so that at the end of the movement his arm was across his body, protecting it. Purkiss grabbed for his wrist and caught it and pulled it on, continuing the movement. Pope had been anticipating this and wrenched his arm back, failing to free himself from Purkiss’s grip but keeping his balance.

With a sharp twist of Pope’s wrist Purkiss popped the knife out of his hand and heard it clatter to the pavement even as Pope’s free hand came jabbing at his midsection. Pope’s stiffened fingers caught him beneath the sternum and even though Purkiss managed to tense his abdominal muscles in time the pain was immense, as though a skewer had been rammed into his belly. He bent forward involuntarily which was a mistake because Pope’s forehead connected with his cheekbone.

Light and agony exploded in Purkiss’s head. Dimly he was aware that he’d let go of Pope’s wrist. Blinded by nausea he closed up with his arms, covering himself in anticipation of the next blow, but in an instant he realised Pope hadn’t pressed home his advantage but had instead chosen to run.

Purkiss plunged into the teeming, tilting surge of the crowd ahead of him, shoving people aside crudely, feeling as though he were wading through sludge. He kept sight of Pope’s head, maddeningly close yet separated from him by bodies that were starting to turn and react to him with surprise and outrage. He broke through the mass, sending suitcases spinning. Pope was sprinting down the concourse to the right, all attempts at unobtrusiveness abandoned.

The yelling behind Purkiss echoed off the great arched ceiling as he gave chase. Pope was heading along a platform towards the semicircle of daylight at the end of the station, veering close to the edge. Two uniformed, shouting men — station personnel, or police — hove into Purkiss’s field of vision and he dodged them smartly. Pope was nearly at the concrete barrier blocking the way between the end of the station concourse and what was presumably some sort of freight platform on the outside. A burly man, another member of staff, had planted himself at the barrier in Pope’s way.

Purkiss didn’t see exactly what happened next but as he reached the barrier himself he saw the large man sprawled on the platform, hands clasped at his throat, a high-pitched gargling piping from his mouth. There was blood, too, a lot of it. Purkiss vaulted the barrier without breaking his stride. Pope had got across it even more quickly and was well along the platform outside.

It was as Purkiss had guessed a loading area for freight. Personnel in orange jackets were clustered in a group, staring in astonishment, one or two stepping towards Pope with their hands raised in warning. None of them made a grab at him. By the time Purkiss passed them they had got over their initial bewilderment and looked more willing to confront this second interloper. Something in Purkiss’s face seemed to discourage them.

A train was at rest on the track to the left. Purkiss watched Pope draw level with the last carriage ahead, then hesitate, looking back. Pope leaped from the edge of the platform, disappearing behind the train.

Purkiss reached the end of the train. Four tracks ran in parallel, and Pope was on the island between the middle two tracks, sprinting again in the same direction as before. Instead of crossing behind the stationary train and following Pope, Purkiss continued running along the platform, parallel now to the other man. Ahead, the outer two tracks merged into one so that Purkiss and Pope were now separated by a single track.

Even as he ran, Purkiss knew the other man had the edge: in stamina and in speed. Not an enormous advantage, but enough to make a difference. Pope was pulling ahead so that they were no longer level.

When you’ve lost one advantage, create another.