their character. . unless they were brandishing a weapon or wearing a body belt of explosives strapped to their chests, then he felt able to make all the judgements in the world. But this man was different. Whether it was his tone, body language or accent, or the knowledge that Pike had been here more than once with ‘friends’, he knew without a shadow of doubt that the barman was what he’d been looking for. He was crossing the trail of the Protectory.
It felt like stepping over a snake.
‘You never saw him.’
‘Not what I said. I said I don’t remember seeing him. Different thing altogether.’ He gave a tough-guy smile, as if pleased with his response, and picked up the glass and resumed his polishing.
‘You’re right,’ said Harry. ‘It is different.’ He sipped the coffee. It was stewed and bitter on the palate. He decided to push harder. ‘Why, if you don’t remember him, have you just polished that glass three times since I came in?’
The barman stared at him and flushed. He’ll remember this, thought Harry, watching the anger rise in the man’s face. He’ll remember and pass the word.
‘I think you’d better leave.’ The barman put down the glass again and lifted his chest. ‘Right now. The coffee’s on the house.’
The barman waited for five minutes after the Englishman had gone. Then he went over to a payphone at the rear of the premises. He dialled a number from memory, and when it was answered, identified himself.
‘Wait there,’ said a woman’s voice on the other end. ‘Keep the line free. He’ll call back.’
He placed an ‘Out of Order’ sign on the phone and went back to the bar, where he continued polishing glasses. When the phone rang, he picked it up.
‘What have you got?’ The voice was male, the accent British.
‘It’s Daniels. I just had a guy in here asking questions.’
‘About what?’
‘You know. The guy on the run. . Fraser. This fella showed me a photo. It was definitely him.’
‘What was his name? What did he look like?’
‘He didn’t say his name. I didn’t ask. Just a guy, y’know? British, forty-something, good build, not a business type, though. Smelled like a cop. Hard-nosed.’ He had his own reasons for avoiding cops; especially those from countries with extradition treaties. He recalled the way the man had looked at him, and how he’d felt a sudden chill in his stomach. Drunks sometimes had the same look. But they were rarely dangerous. Drunks he could deal with. But this one had been stone cold sober. He considered the answer he’d given the visitor, and decided on a small lie. ‘I told him I’d never seen the guy before.’
There was a short silence, then, ‘That was a mistake. Not remembering is a better answer.’
NINETEEN
In Schwedt, Sylvia Heidl struggled into a thin overcoat and headscarf, picked up a shopping bag, then cast around for a moment before gathering together a pair of worn shoes and an old towel. She placed the phone and passport in the bag, and covered them with the towel. After checking the bag to make sure nothing could be seen, she slipped on her shoes and left the flat.
The air on the landing was cold and damp. She took a deep breath, feeling the customary stab of pain in her chest. It hurt more today than it had in a while, and she wondered if Ulf had managed to get her any more painkillers. She wasn’t sure she could take another day without them.
As she emerged from the prefab concrete block, one of the few cheap workers’ buildings that hadn’t been flattened in the wake of reunification and development, the smell from the refinery and factories engulfed her like a cloak. They had said you would get used to it, but she never had. She followed the path into town. A steady stream of heavy trucks caked in mud thundered along the narrow road, their slipstream tugging at her coat and whipping a spray of damp grit across her face.
She passed only two other women on the way. Both ignored her. The streets in the centre were quiet, with a scattering of cars and one or two pickup trucks. If there was any new wealth from the reunification, it had not yet penetrated this far in any major way, seemingly bypassing the town like the trucks.
She entered a doorway along a narrow street and climbed a steep flight of uneven stairs, her breath rasping in her throat. As she reached the landing a door opened and her brother Ulf peered out. He beckoned her in and closed the door.
‘Do you have them?’ she asked, slumping into a chair. She was struggling for breath, her face a pallid grey and her eyes narrowed to pinpoints.
He nodded and took a twist of paper from his pocket. ‘Only when you have to,’ he reminded her. ‘When the pain is too much.’ He said it each time he gave her the painkillers, but the intervals between her asking for more were getting shorter all the time. Very soon the tablets would fail to make any difference at all.
She took the paper with trembling hands and undid the twist. A tiny tablet slid into her palm, and with a brief nod she put it between her lips and swallowed, her fleshless throat working to push the painkiller down. She smiled. It was too soon for the tablet to have worked, but the act of swallowing seemed somehow to work its magic on her. She carefully re-twisted the paper and placed it in her coat pocket.
‘Let me look at you,’ he said softly, touching her face with a gentle hand. She pushed his hand away with a gentle shushing sound. The clinic had already explained that her exposure years ago to a range of deadly toxins had eaten away at her internal organs and left precious little to save. All Ulf could do was try to make life as bearable as possible.
He poured some of the good coffee he got from a porter at the hospital, and watched as Sylvia breathed in the heavy aroma. She didn’t come here often, although he’d tried repeatedly to get her to share the flat with him, to reduce the burden of a lonely life without her husband. But she always refused stubbornly.
‘No news of Claus?’ He had never cared for her husband, contemptuous of his work for the
Sylvia put her mug down and reached inside her bag. Placed the black mobile phone and blood-red passport in front of him. ‘Can you sell these?’ she asked him.
Ulf stared at them in astonishment. He poked the phone with a stubby finger and saw a winking green light. Some of the better-placed army officers carried them down at the hospital in Freienfelde. Kids, too — even the ones with no money.
‘Where the hell did you get these?’ He didn’t possess one himself, but understood the basic functions. This one, with a picture screen and lots of little images, looked as if it could track a rocket all the way to the moon.
‘Old Wilhelm found them down by the border. He wants you to sell them and share the money. He’s afraid to try in case he gets ripped off.’
‘Have you shown them to anyone else?’
She shook her head. ‘I was too scared.’
‘God, the old fool must be getting senile!’ he muttered. ‘It’s a good job you didn’t use it. They can track these things from space. Thirty thousand metres up and a satellite tells them just where you’re calling from. “Yes, Commander, we have an old lady in Schwedt, a nowhere spot on the bloody map, and she’s using a stolen phone to call her friends around the world.”’ He sighed guiltily. He was exaggerating. Anyway, who would she have called? He flicked open the passport, his tone softer. ‘Sorry. I’m worried about you, that’s all. These things, they’re like gold dust in the right places. But if you got caught with it. .’
He picked up the phone again and tapped some keys. A list of numbers scrolled up the small screen, showing which ones had been dialled last. Three were to the same number, and began with an overseas code, 00 44. He seemed to recall the number 44 was for the United Kingdom. No doubt he would soon find out if he dialled it. But was it safe?
Then he recalled that these things had a message facility, like ordinary landline phones. He played with the keys until he found the voicemail. It held one message. If the date setting was correct, it had been left nearly two
