going, it would be extremely difficult for anyone else to predict his route.
The countryside was dominated by rich agricultural land, fields and patches of woodland extending on both sides of the road. A short distance outside Gro? Machnow, the road-he knew he was driving along the Mittenwalder Strasse-bisected a wood where there were pull-offs on both sides of the road. He’d seen almost no traffic since he drove out of Gro? Machnow, and could see no other cars parked in the wood. It was probably as good a place to stop as anywhere else he’d seen.
Bronson swung the car right, bouncing off the tarmac and on to the hard-packed earth of one of the turnoffs, and tucked the Hyundai behind a group of shrubs, where it would be virtually invisible from the road. He opened the two front windows, then switched off the engine and for a few moments just sat and listened. The only sound he could hear was birdsong-the evening equivalent of the dawn chorus-and the buzz of insects. He knew he would hear any approaching vehicles easily enough, and the chances of him being spotted were extremely slim. And even if somebody did see him, sitting there in the car, he wasn’t actually doing anything illegal. Unless they found the Llama pistol under his seat, that is.
Bronson opened up the map book of Germany that he’d purchased en route from Calais to Berlin, and began studying the area to the southeast of the city, the area where he guessed the house was located. The problem, he saw immediately, was that there were a lot of waterways-rivers, canals and lakes-around Berlin. He remembered reading in a German tourist brochure on the cross-Channel ferry that the area was known to be marshy from the very earliest days of the settlement, and that the word “berl,” which formed the first part of the city’s name, actually meant “swamp” in some archaic European language. The terrain shown on the map to the southeast of Berlin was splashed with blue, and the rivers and canals were crossed at frequent intervals by roads, almost always at right angles. In many cases settlements had sprung up near the junction of the road and the waterway-rendering two of Bronson’s remembered identifying features essentially useless.
And there was a further irritation because the map book was intended for motorists and so most of the roads were identified by numbers, not by names, and he could see no sign of a road named Kauptstrasse anywhere in the area. He knew he would need to buy more detailed maps, more like the British Ordnance Survey sheets, to find what he was looking for.
The only other option was the satnav unit, but before he could ask it to find Kauptstrasse, he had to be able to identify the town, village or district in which the road was located. He switched on the unit anyway, waited until it had locked onto the satellites, then selected Berlin as the city and typed in Kauptstrasse, but the result was more or less what he’d expected: the unit couldn’t locate it, simply because the road wasn’t in Berlin itself, but in some suburb or outlying village.
He glanced at his watch. It was already after nine, and Bronson was hungry and thirsty, but also physically exhausted and emotionally drained, wrung out by the events of the evening. He needed food and drink, and then somewhere to stay for the night.
But for now he needed to get some sleep.
24
23 July 2012
Just over an hour after Angela ended the call to Bronson, the entry-phone in her apartment buzzed, and a couple of minutes after that she opened the door in response to a double knock. A tall, dark-haired man stood waiting outside on the landing, wearing an open-necked shirt, a light-colored pullover and a knee-length leather coat. He was strongly built, with the powerful arms and broad shoulders of a committed sportsman-he looked like a swimmer, or maybe a rugby player.
“Steven,” she said, opening the door wide and ushering her guest inside. “I’m so glad you could make it. I really didn’t know who else I could call.”
Steven Behr stepped forward and gave Angela a kiss on each cheek. They’d known each other for years, ever since first meeting at university, and had always remained good friends. But they rarely saw each other simply because of their hectic but very different lifestyles. Angela knew Steven had a high-powered job in IT but had never really been sure exactly what it was. She just knew he was somebody she could rely on and, more important to her at that precise moment, his German was fluent.
The giveaway was his unusual surname. Angela knew that Steven had done a little research into its origins, and had discovered that it had most probably been derived from Bahr, and that name from the nickname Bar, meaning a “bear.” And, she had often thought, rarely had any surname been more appropriate: Steven Behr was in many ways remarkably like his animal namesake. He was strong and courageous, but blessed-or perhaps cursed- with an impatient and highly competitive streak that meant he didn’t suffer fools gladly. In fact, she knew he didn’t suffer them at all, which was probably one reason for his success in business.
“You know you can call me anytime,” Steven said. “I’m always pleased to help if you need a shoulder to lean on.”
Angela led the way into the sitting room, where her laptop was open on the coffee table in front of the sofa. In the opposite corner of the room, her TV was switched on and displaying one of the satellite news channels, but with the sound muted.
“Take a seat, and I’ll get you a coffee.”
“Thanks. A cappuccino would be great. Got any biscuits?”
Angela smiled. Steven Behr’s appetite was legendary, but he never seemed to put on any weight because of his incredibly active lifestyle.
“I thought you knew me better than that,” she said. “The best I can do is instant with a dash of milk.”
“Pretty much what I expected, actually.”
Steven walked across to the leather recliner by the side of the sofa and sat down, drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair.
A minute or so later Angela reappeared, put the mug of coffee down on the table, along with a plate of assorted cookies, and resumed her seat in front of the laptop.
“I gather you’ve got a bit of a problem?” Steven asked, picking up a digestive.
Angela nodded.
“Well,” she said, “it’s not so much me as Chris. I don’t pretend to know anything like the full story, but he’s had to go over to Germany. Something to do with his work, with the police, but I really don’t know what.”
“The ideal choice, I suppose,” Steven said, “because he doesn’t speak a word of German, as far as I know. Typical of the bureaucrats who run the police these days. So what’s his problem? Does he need a translator? I could go over there for a couple of days if that would help.”
Angela shook her head. “Not a translator so much as a translation. The problem is that he overheard a German word, a word that could be important because of the circumstances in which he heard it, but it doesn’t make any sense to me. I mean, it’s not in any of the dictionaries I’ve looked at so far. That’s why I thought of you, because you’re fluent.”
Steven nodded.
“So you think he might have misheard it, and I might recognize what the word should actually be?”
“Exactly.”
“I’m all ears. What did he hear?”
“He thought it was ‘ Laterntrager,’” Angela replied.
For a few seconds Steven didn’t reply, just finished the biscuit and took a sip of coffee before replacing the mug on the table. Then he glanced across at Angela.
“You’re right-he probably did mishear it. That’s a fairly uncommon proper name in Germany, but as far as I’m aware it doesn’t have any other meaning. Could it just have been someone’s surname?”
“I don’t think so. Because of the context, Chris seemed to think that it referred to an object of some sort, perhaps to a kind of weapon or even a machine. Something physical, anyway.”
Steven nodded, and mouthed the words a few times. Then he nodded again and looked back at Angela.
“That changes the dynamic,” he said. “I can think of one word that sounds quite like ‘ Laterntrager ’ and it probably does refer to some kind of a mechanical device. But it’s not ‘ Laterntrager;’ it’s ‘ Laternentrager.’”
