given her strength. Her years in Blankenese, watching over her niece, had not dulled her determination. She had no fear. At the wire, shoes flailed on a level with her head.
She reached up, caught a shoe, lost it, then held the ankle. For a moment she clung to it, then it was torn away. She caught the hem of the long coat.
The heel of a shoe banged against her forehead, dazed her. A toecap caught her mouth, split her lip, and she spat away the broken tooth cap. She clung to the coat. She heard the voice of the Bear. Her fingers clawed into the coat, and the man inside it writhed – and then he was gone.
She had the coat, which sagged down and swamped her. It was a blanket on her head. As she threw it off, the aunt saw the body – a sharp moment
– astride the fence and then he jumped. She stamped in fury, frustration.
The assistant deputy commander broke the fall, and the breath squealed out of him.
Polly grabbed the man's arm and pulled him up, her grip loose from blood spilling out. She heard Konig, cursing, follow her up the path between the fences.
Slithering, stumbling, they reached the side road.
The man she held started to struggle as if his own fall, on to Konig, had first winded him but now he fought for his life. Not in time. The arm she held at the elbow was dragged back and she heard the metallic click of handcuffs closing, then the belt of a fist into the man's head. They careered down the side-street and towards the lights of the main road.
Konig gasped, 'There's a firearm, legally held, in the house. If we're found we're fucked – no questions – we're dead.'
'Don't you carry a weapon?'
'What? Use it in defence of a thief, an intruder?
Grow up, child.'
'A thief?'
'An idiot.'
They passed the gate and lights now shone down on the garden and the front of the house and she heard the confused yells behind the steel plates and the thickened hedge. Between them, they pulled the man, each holding one of his arms and he was limp.
His shoes scraped on the pavement. What had happened coursed in Polly Wilkins's mind.
Konig had parked his unmarked car at the main road. He had pointed out to her the camera half hidden by branches, on his orders in place for three days, and had murmured wryly that it was 'for statistics of traffic analysis, and in no way contravening the Human Rights of Timo Rahman by-intrusion', had explained that to go to an investigating judge for authorization would have risked involvement with a corrupt official. They had been in front of the house, walking briskly, when they had heard the first shrill shout. They had found the path between the fences and been drawn down it towards the yelling and screaming. When the struggle was at the far side of the fence they had stopped. He had come over, clothes ripping, had been on top of the fence, outlined against the night, then had dropped on to Konig. What she recalled most clearly of the man as she had lifted him was the smell of old, stale dirt.
They reached the main road, turned the corner, and behind them heard the scrape of the gates opening.
Doors zapped as they ran to the car. They pitched the man on to the floor space between the seats, and Polly went in after him. From the car's roof light, she saw the man's face, then Konig's door slammed shut and they accelerated away.
She grinned. 'Not much of a return for all the drama, Johan. Your catch looks and stinks like a damn vagrant.'
Dazed and numbed – as he had been once before -
Malachy lay prone, not in a gutter but on the carpet of a car's floor.
Against his face, holding down his head, was the smooth, warm, stockinged ankle of the woman. He did not know what havoc he had left behind him or what chaos lay ahead.
Chapter Thirteen
'My name is Malachy David Kitchen, and my date of birth is-'
'We know your date of birth.'
'-and my date of birth is the twenty-fifth of May, 1973.'
'And your blood group is O positive, and your religion is Church of England. I think we have covered that ground.'
They had taken his wristwatch, shoe laces and belt.
The German swung the dog tags in circles. He sat hunched on the mattress, rubber sheeting around thin foam, on the concrete bench that was the cell's bed.
The German was propped against the concrete slab, the table, beside the lavatory, and the woman leaned against the closed door and held the passport lifted from his hip pocket.
'My name is Malachy David Kitchen, and my date of birth is the twenty-fifth of May 1973.'
She said, 'And your passport lists your occupation as government service.'
The German said, 'Your military number is 525 329.
It is late, I want my bed, and you should tell me why you were at the house of Timo Rahman.'
She yawned. 'What government service requires a man with British military identification to be at the home of Timo Rahman?'
'My name is Malachy David Kitchen and my DOB is the twenty-fifth of May, '73.'
The tags swung faster, their shapes blurred in front of him. His passport was now closed, held behind her back. His scratches from the barbed wire were not cleaned and they made little stabs of pain on his palms and thighs.
He did not know their names because he had not been told them but he could assume the man was senior. They had taken him fast out of the car and had dragged him up the steps of a monstrous glass and concrete building. Police had hurried out of the protected reception area and had shown acute deference to the man, but had been waved away. He had been taken down two flights of stairs, along a corridor, then pitched headlong into a cell. They had followed him inside and the man had kicked the door shut behind him. He had half fallen to the bed, then had settled on the mattress. The storm of questions had begun. Over and over again, a repeated litany. When had he come to Germany? What was his business in Hamburg?
Why had he broken into the grounds of the residence of Timo Rahman? He had taken as his focus point the barred ceiling light.
'It's a simple enough question, Malachy.' She could not suppress another yawn. 'Come on, don't mess with us, not at a quarter past three. Why were you there?'
The German had come close to him, knelt in front of him and swung the tags. 'What 'government service' brings a British citizen to the home of the pate of organized crime in Hamburg, when that citizen has military identification but is dressed like a derelict and stinks of sleeping on the streets? What?'
'My name is Malachy Kitchen, my-'
'Oh, for Christ's sake! Don't you know how to help yourself?' Her shoes thudded on the cell floor in theatrical exasperation.
'-date of birth is the twenty-fifth of May, 1973.'
'You are in debt to us,' the German grated. 'If we had not been there to help you, they would have killed you. Killed you and dumped you where your body would never be found.'
'Who sent you, Malachy?'
'Who put you against Timo Rahman?'
At the light on the ceiling, a fly came close to the bulb. For minutes it had circled the brightness, and he had
