Mark Burnell - Gemini

HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Mark Burnell 2003

Mark Burnell asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names,

characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the

author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons,

living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

A catalogue record for this book

is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Source ISBN: 9780008339197

Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN 9780007383061

Version: 2019-07-24

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

For Ivan with love

Cover

Title Page GEMINI Mark Burnell

Copyright Copyright Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Marrakech 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Acknowledgements Keep Reading About the Author Also by Mark Burnell About the Publisher HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk Copyright © Mark Burnell 2003 Mark Burnell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. Source ISBN: 9780008339197 Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN 9780007383061 Version: 2019-07-24 HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Dedication Dedication Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Marrakech 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Acknowledgements Keep Reading About the Author Also by Mark Burnell About the Publisher For Ivan with love

Marrakech

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Acknowledgements

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by Mark Burnell

About the Publisher

The first time Icame to Marrakech I was a French tourist. I was also one half of a couple in love. Or so it must have seemed to those who saw us together. He was a lawyer from Milan, who told me that he’d been married but was now divorced. He never mentioned his second wife, though, or that she still considered their marriage idyllic, blessed, as it was, with three children, a house by Lake Como and a villa in Sardinia. Then again, I never mentioned that I intended to steal Russian SVR files from the wall-safe in his company apartment in Geneva. Or that having an affair with me might cost him his life.

Dishonesty was the blood that surged through the veins of our brief relationship. Without it there would have been no relationship. Without dishonesty I can never have a relationship because, after the truth, who in their right mind would have me?

The lawyer from Milan knew me as Juliette. The man who will meet me on the roof terrace of Café La Renaissance in seven minutes will know me as Petra Reuter. Around the world my face has many names, none of them real. Long ago, when I was a complete person – a single individual – I was someone called Stephanie Patrick. But almost nobody remembers her now.

Sometimes, not even me.

Dressed in black cotton trousers, a navy linen shirt and a pair of DKNY trainers, Petra Reuter crossed Avenue Mohammed V and took the lift to Café La Renaissance’s roof terrace, which overlooked Place Abdel Moumen ben Ali. Sprawled before her, Marrakech shimmered in the parching heat; eleven in the morning and it was already close to forty centigrade. She took off her sunglasses, swept long, dark hair from her eyes and was forced to squint. Above her the sky was deep sapphire, but the horizon remained bleached of colour. Beneath her, drowsy in the scorching breeze, the city murmured: the rasp of old engines, the squeal of a horn, of a shuddering halt, the bark of a dog from a nearby rooftop. She was surprised how much green there was among the terracotta and ochre, full trees throwing welcome shade onto baking pavements. She put her sunglasses back on.

There were some tables on the roof terrace with cheap metal chairs, their turquoise paint chipped and faded. At one table two soft, pear-shaped women were hunched over a map. Petra thought they sounded Canadian. At another table an elderly man in a crumpled grey suit sat in the shade, reading an Arabic newspaper. His walnut skin was peppered with shiny pink blotches. On a section of roof terrace overlooking Place Abdel Moumen ben Ali there were three large, red plastic letters hoisted on blue poles: b – a – r. Four French tourists were taking photographs of themselves with the reverse side of the letters as a backdrop.

Petra bought a Coke and sat at a secluded table. A fortnight had elapsed since her TGV had pulled into Marseille. She’d felt uneasy on that muggy afternoon, but she felt worse now. She’d arrived in Marseille from Ostend, via Paris. In Ostend she’d gone to the bar where Maxim Mostovoi had once been a regular. A charmless place with bright overhead lights and two dilapidated pool tables, one with a torn cloth. With a shrug of regret the proprietor said that Mostovoi hadn’t been in for at least six months; the traditional first line of defence. But Petra had come prepared, and a phrase contained within a question yielded an address in Paris: an apartment on the Rue d’Odessa in Montparnasse which, in turn, led to Marseille. From Marseille she’d travelled to Beirut, then Cairo. In Cairo two addresses – a Lebanese restaurant on Amman Street in Mohandesseen and a contemporary art gallery on Brazil Street in Zamalek – had finally delivered her to this rooftop terrace in Marrakech.