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 cafes 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
The 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 cafes, 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-cafe 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. ‘
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.
‘
The Continentale was sleek, modern and furnished with polished wooden bench seats and tables, and a scattering of ethnic cushions under subdued lighting. A small dais at the end was overlooked by a row of coloured spotlights and held two large amplifiers and a microphone. The barman was a spit for a young Bruce Springsteen, right down to the blue jeans and waistcoat, and nodded as Harry approached the bar. There were no other customers, in spite of it being close to lunchtime, and he guessed the place probably came alive at night.
He ordered a coffee and slid Pike’s photo across the bar. ‘Have you seen this man recently? His name’s Fraser.’ He didn’t bother with the brother-in-law; any pro barmen would automatically clam up when faced with a story like that.
The man put down the glass he was polishing and studied the picture, his expression blank. ‘Sorry, pal.’ His accent was pure American, the voice a growl nurtured on late nights and too many cigarettes. ‘Don’t remember him.’ He dropped the photo and turned to pour a cup of coffee from a percolator on the back counter. He placed the cup in front of Harry and added cream and sugar alongside. ‘Come night-time, this place rocks, y’know? People come and go all the time. Just faces, most of ’em. It’s like Grand Central. What’s he done?’
Harry wasn’t in the habit of making snap judgements. He usually had to know people a while before judging
