On the platform, you will walk and find a man sitting on a bench wearing a green jacket. He is the next link in your chain. His name is Miklos. He has a beard and will be drinking from a bottle of Vittel water. He has seen your photograph so he will recognize you, even if you do not recognize him. Miklos will then take you to the airport and see that you are flown safely back to London.’
‘That’s extraordinary.’ Gaddis marvelled at the speed at which Tanya had worked, the favours she had called in, the networks she had activated. ‘And if I’m stopped at any point? If the Russians are on to me?’
‘It is a good question.’ Eva conveyed how seriously she was taking it by slowing down slightly and rubbing the back of her neck. ‘I have to tell you that there is very little possibility you will be stopped or asked questions at any point in your journey. Austria is not a police state, Doctor Gaddis. Hungary is not a police state. I have been following the news reports of the incident at Kleines Cafe and no mention has been made of a man fitting your description. Nevertheless, it is possible that the police are buying time and that they have a closed-circuit image of you from the bar. Is this possible?’
‘I don’t know.’ Gaddis was suddenly concerned. It was the one angle that he hadn’t considered. He thought of the Goth at Meisner’s apartment and tried to remember if he had seen a camera bolted to the wall of the cafe. Surely the blanket surveillance of CCTV cameras in public spaces was a uniquely British disease? ‘I don’t think so.’
‘But a member of staff or a customer may have spoken to the police. Again, we cannot be sure. Now, there is no formal customs at the border because of Schengen. If, however, we are stopped by a guard for some reason, you are to say that you are my friend from England and that we are going to Budapest for a few days. You have been staying at my apartment in Vienna since Thursday.’ There was a slight pause. ‘If necessary, we will give the impression that my husband and your wife would rather not know about this.’
It was Eva who blushed, not Gaddis, and he was relieved to see this calm, resourceful woman succumbing to a momentary embarrassment. It brought them closer together.
‘Do I stick to my own name?’
‘At this stage, yes. A new identity has been prepared for you by Miklos. You will leave Hungary using a false passport.’
Gaddis felt so reassured by the arrangements that he allowed himself to close his eyes and to relax briefly as the car sped towards the border. He thought that he saw an army of wind turbines stretching from horizon to horizon but could not be sure if he had been dreaming. The next thing he knew, Eva was pulling into a Soviet-era railway station on the Hungarian side, having crossed the border without need of disturbing him. They were in Hegyeshalom.
‘Wait here, please,’ she said when she saw that he had woken up. By the clock on the dashboard of the car, it was just before nine o’clock in the morning.
‘What’s happening?’
‘I buy ticket.’
He was alone in the deserted car park. A starved cat was scratching around in a small pile of rubbish. Some blue plastic tarpaulins had been piled up next to an old truck which looked as though it hadn’t been driven since the Cold War. Gaddis felt that he had woken up in Russia: a world of crumbling, Communist-era apartment blocks, of railway carriages abandoned on weed-thick sidings, of tangles of loose wire in overhead cables. Everything less neat, everything less manicured. He caught the smell of his own breath and craved some water. Falling asleep had been a mistake. The brief respite had left him feeling more, not less tired.
Eva returned five minutes later armed with a cheese sandwich, a half-litre bottle of water and a ticket to Budapest.
‘You got a return,’ Gaddis pointed out, devouring the sandwich and drinking the water until it was almost finished.
‘You are coming back tomorrow,’ she replied, with a knowing smile. ‘A one-way journey always looks more suspicious. Which reminds me.. ’
She stepped out of the car and opened the boot, returning with a faded leather bag which contained some toiletries, a couple of paperback books and a T-shirt.
‘This is for your journey.’ She closed the door of the car. ‘A foreigner who gets on to a train without a bag may look suspicious. Try to find a seat next to a young person, if you do not wish to be disturbed. They are less likely to bother you with conversation. Within an hour you will be in Budapest. There is absolutely nothing to worry about. I am just sorry that I cannot come with you.’
‘It’s fine,’ Gaddis replied.
‘Could I have your mobile phone please?’ He was not surprised that she had asked. ‘I will take it back to Austria and switch it on in a park near my house. It may distract the people who are following you. They may believe that you are still in Vienna. On the other hand, they may assume that it is a trick. Either way, it is not safe for you to be carrying it. Do you have any further questions?’
There were hundreds more, of course, but Gaddis could not think of them. Probably better that way. There was no need to complicate things further. After all, how hard could it be? All he had to do was get on a train and meet a man called Miklos. He looked up to see the Budapest train sliding into the station. Eva had timed things perfectly. He stepped out of the car.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You’ve been very kind. I don’t suppose we’ll get the chance to meet again.’
‘I don’t suppose,’ Eva replied. Gaddis gave her the phone and the battery. ‘You will be fine, Doctor Gaddis, you will be fine. I wish you the very best of luck.’
Chapter 46
The train hummed and sighed on the tracks. Gaddis walked into a carriage halfway down the platform and saw that only a handful of empty seats remained. He looked for somebody young, as Eva had advised, spotting a crew-cut Hungarian with tattooed biceps seated at a table opposite a bottle-blonde woman in her early twenties who was staring moodily out of the window. Their legs were entwined beneath the table. There was a spare seat beside the girl. Gaddis nodded at it and the Hungarian indicated that it was free with a flick of his eyes, nothing more. Gaddis thanked him with a nod, swung his bag up on to the rack and sat down.
The train began to pull away from the station. An old woman stared at Gaddis as he settled into his seat, but when he caught her eye she looked away. Across the aisle, a young teenager was listening to an MP3 player on headphones which were covered in pink and yellow stickers. Beside her was a middle-aged businessman in a brown suit who was fast asleep, his mouth hung open, a blob of spittle pooling on his chin. It didn’t look as though anybody was going to start making polite conversation. People appeared to be minding their own business.
On the table in front of him was an open can of Coca-Cola and a crumpled copy of a Hungarian daily newspaper. Gaddis wanted to get a look at the front page, even though he knew that there was no chance of Wilkinson’s murder having made it into the early-morning editions. A female passenger across the aisle was reading an Austrian gossip magazine with a picture of Katarina Witt on the cover, skating in a red dress. Gaddis was feeling fidgety and needed something to do with his hands. He remembered the paperback books in his bag, yet did not want to draw attention to himself by reaching up on to the rack so early in the journey. So he stared out of the window. He absorbed the roads and the fields and the woods of the quiet Hungarian countryside, conscious of every tic and movement in his facial expression. It was impossible to relax. How many times in his life had he sat on trains, staring out of windows, his mind successfully and unself-consciously blank? Thousands. Yet today he was aware even of his own breathing.
Fifteen minutes passed. A ticket inspector appeared at the rear of the carriage and began making his way down the aisle, checking passengers who had joined at Hegyeshalom. It took the inspector what felt like an age to reach the block of seats around Gaddis, to request his ticket and to return it with a brisk nod. Gaddis watched with relief as he moved on. Buoyed by this first successful brush with authority, he stood up, nodded at his tattooed companion and walked in the direction of the dining car.
It was deserted. There were rows of tables, set for four, laid out with red tablecloths and leather-bound menus advertising goulash and five ways with chicken. Gaddis could not recall whether or not Eva had advised him to move around the train, yet he had felt so static in his seat, so trapped, that the walk had seemed essential to his
