Deception (11 page)

Harry explained about his intention of following Pike's trail back to Holland. ‘Wherever Pike started his return journey, he must have had a meeting prior to that, presumably to sell what he knew, which generated the payment through Grand Cayman. Getting a line on where he came from right before he used the cash machine in The Hague will help me backtrack him from there.'

‘We know he was in Thailand,' Ballatyne pointed out. ‘Long way to go.'

‘It's also too big and crowded. You could hide an entire regiment out there and nobody would know.'

‘Fair comment. But why travel anywhere? We've got people who can do the research online and on the ground. Ferris could do it, given the right equipment. How is our wounded soldier, by the way?'

‘He's fine. He'll be all right when he's rested up and got something to concentrate on.' He paused, then said, ‘I want to rattle a few cages over there, to see what I turn up. If I cross the Protectory's trail along the way, they might get to hear about it. That won't happen working online.'

Ballatyne pursed his lips. ‘It's a risky strategy, rattling cages. You never know who or what you might wake up.'

‘I know. But I'm short of ideas at the moment.'

‘Fair enough.' Ballatyne nodded. ‘Just watch your back.'

He walked out, leaving Harry to shut the door.

SEVENTEEN

A
sickly dawn was lifting over the horizon as former railroad worker Wilhelm Dieter plodded slowly away from Schwedt, following his ritual daily walk, a determined but joyless defence against advancing old age. He absorbed little of the surrounding scenery to interest him; he'd been seeing it for too many years to count and doubted it would bring anything new to arouse his curiosity or brighten his day. It was why he alternated between this route and another going north, hopeful that maybe the change would keep his mind engaged along with his body, and throw up something distracting to look at once in a while, even if only some wildlife.

As he neared the strand of pine trees running along the border like a prickly rash, he noticed a group of carrion crows in the upper branches. Nothing unusual in crows, he reflected, the bloody things were everywhere. But clumped together like that? They looked like a bunch of priests on a day out, dark and faintly shabby, united in their bickering.

Tyre tracks in the mud – and recent, too. He'd have noticed them if they'd been here on his last walk two days ago. Nothing much came down here these days other than the occasional border patrol, although they were rare, too. There wasn't the same need now, for patrols. Not since the Wall had come down.

He stopped and gave vent to a hacking cough, the result of too many cheap cigarettes, a lousy diet and damp living conditions, and tugged irritably at the woollen cap with the ear-flaps flying loose about his head. He shivered and thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his trench coat, feeling the cold easterly wind coming across the trees and surrounding grassland. Christ, if only we could have a bit more sunshine, he thought. It would liven up this bloody back-of-nowhere place for a start.

He continued walking and skirted a puddle, his ears prickling with tension. He stopped and studied the ground. Footprints everywhere, and more than one set, by the look of it. The tyre tracks ran on through the mud, leading towards the bend and the thicket where a few irresponsible louts from the town were forever dumping the rubbish they couldn't be bothered to dispose of properly.

He decided to take a look. There was nowhere down here for a vehicle to go, not unless it was military or police. The track ended in a heavy gate, although if one were determined, it might be possible to blast through. But why bother? It only led to Poland for God's sake; same scenery, different language.

He followed the track, his curiosity aroused. If there was anything salvageable, he could maybe get some cash for it in town. Anyway, what else did he have to occupy himself? Then he noticed a shallow furrow leading off to one side of the track, as if something heavy had been dragged through the grass towards the trees where the crows were gathered. A sack of something, perhaps? Probably somebody's worthless shit, but worth a look at least  . . .

As he stepped off the track he noticed a coat spread over a tangle of blackthorn, the khaki colour darkened almost black in places by moisture. An old jacket, he decided, military surplus by the looks of it and widely available in places if you knew where to look. But why was it here? He felt the beginnings of a worm of excitement beating in his chest, and stepped forward to retrieve it.

Two hours later, less than two kilometres away, a former government office worker named Sylvia Heidl sat in a bare flat on the second floor of an ugly concrete block looking out over a featureless landscape. She was staring at a shiny black object on her kitchen table. It had a small green power light in one end which was flashing intermittently like a deficient ceiling bulb. It was a sign of energy and life, seemingly mocking the fact that her own vital signs were fast diminishing.

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 cafés 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.

EIGHTEEN

T
he 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 cafés, 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-café 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.

He entered the tour agency and showed the man behind the desk the photo of Pike. ‘I'm looking for my brother-in-law,' he explained. ‘He stayed in the area and bought a Eurostar ticket to London, but never arrived home. His name's Fraser.' He had written the ticket stub number on the back of the photo.

The manager hesitated for a moment, then shrugged as if answering questions from relatives whose brothers-in-law had not arrived home was not an uncommon occurrence. He entered the number in his computer, waited for a second, then said, ‘Mr Fraser gave his address as the Monro Hostel. It is very popular with people on a budget. Go down Keizerstraat for two hundred metres, then take a left. It is not far.'

‘He paid cash?'

‘Yes.'

Harry thanked him for his help and followed the directions to the Monro Hostel, a red-brick building set back from the street with a large awning over the front. He went inside and stepped over a pile of backpacks to the small desk, and rang the bell. A large woman with bright-red hair came out through a beaded curtain and nodded. ‘
Goedemorgen
.'

Harry explained about his wayward brother-in-law, and how his sister was worried about her husband. The woman listened without comment, then checked a register.