The Rhythm Section--A Stephanie Patrick Thriller

by Mark Burnell

  * * *

  ‘Can I ask you something about Mechelen?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How did you plan that? I mean, how did you know the two who got killed?’

  ‘Through Anna Gerets.’

  Serra frowned. ‘But she wasn’t involved. I understood she was in the Far East.’

  ‘She was. I met her in Bangkok.’

  He raised an eyebrow and nodded. The answer apparently made some sense to him. ‘There have been so many rumours about her. That she was in Malaysia, or the Philippines. Or that she was dead.’

  ‘When I met her, she’d been in Thailand for a month and was about to head for New Zealand.’

  ‘And she just decided to tell you about what she’d done in Belgium?’

  ‘Not at first.’

  ‘How, then?’

  ‘It just took a little time, that’s all.’

  ‘Did you torture her?’ Serra asked, playfully.

  ‘Torture?’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past you. Not with your reputation.’

  ‘If you must know, I slept with her.’ The answer tripped Serra up. It was Petra’s turn to tease. ‘Does that shock you?’

  He managed some indignant protest. ‘Of course not.’ And then he modified it when he realized he’d overplayed it. ‘It’s a little surprising, perhaps, but one does what one has to do, no?’

  ‘Anna was tough. Force would have been pointless. But like everyone else, she had her weaknesses.’

  ‘You said “was”.’

  ‘Yes.’ When Serra opened his mouth for the next question, Petra cut him off. ‘Don’t ask.’

  They were sitting at a table in Speciaal, an Indonesian restaurant on Nieuwe Liliestraat in the Jordaan district. Serra had ordered Tafel Speciaal for both of them, which was a mixture of typical Indonesian dishes. He looked more casual now, in Eurotrash fashion; a pale yellow Ralph Lauren shirt, a navy jacket, grey flannel trousers and black leather slip-ons. Petra was still wearing the same scruffy clothes she had put on in London.

  ‘Why did you need the men anyway?’ Serra asked.

  ‘I knew about Marin’s delivery and I felt Belgium would be the best place to intercept it. I wanted locals who knew how to pull off a job like this, who didn’t mind being ordered around by a woman and who were expendable. They were perfect on all counts.’

  The lies fell easily from Petra’s lips—they always did—and that made them all the more convincing. When she asked him what Khalil’s agenda was, the question appeared to bore Serra. He waved a hand through the air as if the enquiry were a pesky fly that needed to be swatted. ‘Oh, you know, the usual militant Islamic thing. Hatred of Israel, hatred of the United States, particularly for supporting Israel, hatred of any nation that is friendly towards the United States, hatred of the West in general. And when it’s convenient, hatred of anything at all that is un-Islamic. The usual shit that keeps that part of the world in chaos and me in business.’

  Straight-faced, Petra said, ‘What it is to be a banker.’

  ‘I’ve diversified.’

  ‘Haven’t we all.’

  ‘You more than most. A student anarchist in Stuttgart, then Berlin, and now what?’

  ‘I found I’d become the anachronistic anarchist.’

  ‘That doesn’t answer the question.’

  ‘It’s as close as you’re going to get. My agenda is private. What happens between us has no bearing on what I choose to do independently, no matter whose money pays for it.’

  They spoke softly, leaning close to one another. Petra supposed that to an onlooker, they could have appeared as lovers. She imagined Serra looked like a wealthy married man with his young mistress, a single girl who probably considered herself wild and free-spirited but who had, nevertheless, allowed herself to be bought by his charm, sophistication and money. Particularly the money.

  ‘Still,’ he murmured, ‘there seems to be some shared ground between you and my client.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘The assassination of Elaine Freemantle, the US ambassador to Uganda. We believe that was your work.’

  The Kampala car-bomb came courtesy of an imagination at Magenta House. The murder had never been convincingly claimed. It was several months before rumours began to circulate through the intelligence community that Petra Reuter was the culprit. It was vigorously denied for the lie that it actually was but sometimes it was enough just to make the suggestion.

  Petra was inscrutable. ‘What of it?’

  Serra wasn’t finished. ‘And then there was Bruno Kuhlman, the US diplomatic envoy to Bosnia, shot dead in his hotel room in Geneva by an unidentified woman.’

  Kuhlman’s death had been a bizarre accident. The intended target had been a Russian businessman staying in the neighbouring suite. The female killer had escaped but was herself killed less than a week later by her Muscovite bosses in an attempt to protect themselves from the truth. That truth, when reported, sounded more implausible with every genuine detail, so it had been relatively easy for Magenta House to quietly spread the word that it was nothing more than a second-rate cover story.

  ‘What is your point?’ Petra asked.

  ‘My client proposes an alliance.’

  ‘I’ve told you, I don’t form alliances.’

  But Serra had a pitch to make and he was determined to see it through, no matter how awkwardly. The information was scattered thinly across their muted conversation. Petra understood this. As Stephanie, she had encountered plenty of men who wished to unburden themselves in a sense that went beyond the mere physical. Most of these revelations had been unremarkable—typically, wives who no longer interested them sexually, or who had lost their sexual appetite—but to speak of such things always seemed to be such a tortuous process. So it was with Serra. He would have liked to have told her concisely but could not bring himself to allow it.

  So Petra hunted among the scraps. There was a plan, part of a grand scheme, and Serra wanted Petra’s assistance. Was she to be a part of this plan? Perhaps not. Maybe she could fulfil a role as some sort of consultant for … for whom? Khalil? Serra remained reluctant to whisper the name. Besides, it seemed Serra himself was in charge. In charge of what? It was hard to say. For all Serra’s front there remained, throughout the dialogue, a hidden presence, a shadow over the shoulder. Petra felt an invisible hand guiding him. Khalil. She was sure of it.

  Petra met vagueness with vagueness. Yes, she told Serra, she would think about it but she couldn’t promise him anything. How could it be any other way? How could she be enthusiastic over such an amorphous proposal?

  Dinner ended and they walked back along Nieuwe Liliestraat towards the centre of the city. They crossed canals and when they reached the junction with Herengracht, Petra said she was turning right to head back for her hotel.

  ‘Why don’t you come back to my house?’ Serra asked her.

  ‘You have a house here?’

  ‘I’ve been coming here for twenty years. I have many friends in the city. The house is not mine. It’s borrowed.’

  ‘How convenient.’ Petra realized she should accept, if only to discover the address so that Magenta House could trace the owner and engineer further information on Serra. But she said, ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Not even for a drink?’

  She smiled coldly. ‘Especially not for a drink.’

  Serra shrugged ruefully. ‘We’ll be in contact, then.’

  Petra watched him turn away on the bridge and was unable to resist a little dig. ‘By the way, I don’t know anything about driving in Amman but I hear that Al Mafraq is a dangerous place these days.’

  Serra froze and Petra knew that Magenta House’s information was right. Her call to them earlier in the day had been productive. There had been a triple shooting near the Jordanian town, which lay roughly ten miles south of the border with Syria. It was the closest match the researchers had been able to make. Two miles outside the town a gun-fight had occurred, leaving three dead Sy
rians in a Mercedes and one dead Iraqi on the roadside. Unconfirmed reports told of a Toyota speeding away from the scene with four men inside, one of whom was reputed to have been slightly injured.

  Serra turned round and when he spoke it was almost a hiss. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Al Mafraq.’

  He stared at her, either in horror or in anger. It was hard to tell which. Perhaps it was both.

  Petra shrugged. ‘Like you said, information is gold.’

  * * *

  On New Year’s Eve, they went into the West End to meet some of his friends at an Italian restaurant. It felt extraordinary to Petra to be surrounded by normal people having a good time. She laughed with the strangers who were Frank’s friends; a doctor, two journalists, a sculptor, three full-time mothers, a house-husband, an accountant, a college lecturer, a film editor and another geologist. In her mind, she had somehow contrived to create a universe that only she and Frank occupied but these interlopers were a delightful shock. She knew this was how other people lived and she was just astonished to discover that she fitted in. That she could fit in. In the end, she concluded that it was because she was with Frank. What other reason could there be?

  They left the restaurant at eleven and stepped into the freezing night. But the wine in their bellies and the crowds in the streets insulated them against the cold. The group headed for Trafalgar Square where tens of thousands of people had gathered for midnight. But Frank and Petra peeled off from the party and he led her down to the Victoria Embankment, which was also congested but not quite so severely. They secured a place on the wall overlooking the Thames and stared at the glittering lights on the far bank. Frank put his arm around Petra and hugged her close to keep her warm. The gesture brought a lump to her throat. She tried to remember the last man to do that. Proctor? Not that she could recall. Some inconsequential boyfriend? Possibly, but not likely. Her father? Probably. She didn’t want to guess how long ago that had been.

  Midnight came and a new year began. Big Ben boomed and the crowds on the Embankment cheered. Car horns hooted. Fireworks soared into the sky and erupted over the Thames, their reflections brilliant in the choppy surface of the black water. Frank kissed Petra and she felt happy, which, almost inevitably, stirred a sadness within her. Frank saw it in her eyes and had the grace to say nothing. A new year was a time for a new beginning. But every vision of the future was corrupted by Alexander. As her heart lifted, her stomach sank. It didn’t appear that one could exist without the other.

  They walked back to their building, past the drunks in kilts, past those unconscious on the pavement, past the overcrowded buses, past intoxicated streakers, past the invisible homeless, past the streamers that hung from tree branches like leaves of brightly coloured spaghetti, past those who were searching pointlessly for a taxi.

  In the lift, Frank said, ‘Do you want to come in?’

  ‘No.’ He looked disappointed. Petra said, ‘I want you to come to me.’

  It was only as they stepped over the threshold that Petra realized it was the first time Frank had entered her flat. She watched him absorb the living room, comparing it for size, searching for signs of her in the furniture or in personal items. But the furniture wasn’t hers and there were no Gaudenzi photographs. Not any more. Getting rid of them had been an exorcism of sorts. Free from the ghosts of her manufactured history, Petra had been able to regard the flat as some sort of home, not a museum.

  She took him by the hand and led him to her bedroom. He reached for a light but she stopped him and whispered that there was enough light coming through the window. The curtains were left open. Slowly, she shed her clothes while he watched. Neither of them spoke. And when she was naked, she undressed him before melting on to the sheets.

  His touch was becoming more familiar to her. Where initially it had left her tense and cold, now she welcomed it. She allowed his fingers and mouth to move as they wished. She denied him nothing and, gradually, found her mind emptying. The rogue thoughts faded and what filled the vacuum was purely physical. Petra had lost count of the men who had been inside her. At the end of her first week of prostitution numbers had become meaningless and that had been so long ago she now regarded it as an entirely different era. Now, however, it felt as though none of them had ever existed, as though she had imagined all of them. There were no rough hands running over her body, parting her, forcing her, bruising her. Her breasts were no longer sore from mouths and fingers that pinched for the pleasure of her pain. No slaps, no oily sweat, no gagging body-odour, no scouring beards, no halitosis. Sweetest of all, no money.

  She felt the orgasm most intensely in her stomach. It was a gorgeous, volcanic tremble that left her so tender she couldn’t decide whether it was exquisite or excruciating. That was where it started but it spread like a fever, the heat consuming her completely, and she offered no resistance to it.

  For Stephanie, for Petra, for Marina, for everyone she was, the sensation was a revelation. To give without holding anything back. It ran contrary to who she was. But then Stephanie had always derived maximum pleasure from being contrary. It was her nature.

  4

  Marina’s World

  22

  Petra examined her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Icy air brought goose-bumps to her skin. Her nipples contracted, hardened and darkened. She touched her right breast, fuller now than when she had been Stephanie but tauter since she’d begun to exercise. She ran the palm of her hand over her stomach muscles, the definition both tangible and visible. The puppy fat that had appeared during her days with Proctor was now long gone. Her fingers moved through her dark pubic hair and between her thighs, where it remained warm, tender and sticky. She gazed at her short black hair and could hardly imagine herself with Stephanie’s long, bottled-blonde locks. This cut suited her face which had grown severer. She glanced at the cosmetic scar on her left shoulder. When Frank had asked her how she’d got it, she’d told him she’d been impaled by a piece of metal during a car crash as a teenager. The ruined skin felt like plastic beneath her fingertips. Then she looked into her eyes. Deep and dark, fathomless lagoons of oil, they offered nothing to the viewer. They were shark’s eyes and, excepting her mouth, were still her best feature.

  Petra returned to the bedroom where he was waiting for her. Knowing what he wanted, she climbed on to the bed, took two pillows, placing one on top of the other, and then lowered herself on to them so that they raised her hips, presenting him with an invitation. He moved behind her. She heard the tear of the condom wrapper and waited for his thighs to move between hers, forcing them further apart, for his hands to run over her buttocks and hips.

  He entered her with a force that caused her to shudder involuntarily, sucking air into her lungs through clenched teeth. His left hand ran up her spine to her shoulder blades and he pressed her face into the crumpled sheets. Petra closed her eyes and pretended it was Frank.

  * * *

  Marc Serra vanished in January. Petra tried to contact him by phone but the numbers she had for Paris and Amsterdam had been disconnected. She posted messages on her web-sites but none of her e-mail addresses received a reply. Using contacts to tap into the networks of other intelligence agencies, Magenta House tried to locate him but without success. For Alexander, Serra’s disappearance was a source of great concern. For Petra, it was a bonus. It left her in London and that allowed her as much time as she wanted with Frank.

  All her life, Petra had fought against love. As a child, when she was loved unconditionally, she thought she could live without it. She poisoned love and infected those closest to her. Boyfriends were always a phase to her, she remembered. Those who’d tried to win her with sensitivity were cruelly scorned, while those who mistreated her were matched and then bettered, their unpleasantness repaid with interest. Love never came into it, preparing her perfectly for the loveless world she encountered in London. In that environment, there was no love. Love was the enemy. But not any more. She saw that now, yet remained un
able to think about love in any context that related to her. Even the word itself seemed alienating.

  Frank travelled to Namibia for ten days towards the end of January to conduct a series of tests at potential mining sites. Petra was astonished and then ashamed at how much she missed him. Nothing had prepared her for this brand-new sensation: the ache of longing. She found it hard to sleep and lost her appetite, and although Frank called her twice, it was, somehow, worse than not speaking to him at all, since it only served to underline the distance between them. She caught herself hoping that Frank was suffering in the same way; for the first time in her life it mattered to Petra that she was missed.

  The feeling was worse than addiction. In the beginning, you told yourself it was just an experiment, something to be enjoyed casually, without complication. You told yourself you could control it. But it crept up on you. It began to colour every thought in your head. It created a craving and for Petra, a first time victim at twenty-three, the shock to the system was total.

  Together, they began to establish little routines. An embryonic social life developed; they started to operate as a unit and not as two separate entities. Admittedly, this social life revolved entirely around friends of Frank’s but that was okay. Marina was supposed to be a stranger to London so she wasn’t expected to have friends or relatives in the city.

  Petra hated being Marina. She disliked having to maintain the slight trace of a foreign accent just because English was Marina’s third language. She hated having to get out of bed early every weekday morning so that she could pretend to go to work at Brillex-Martins in order to sustain her cover. Lying to Frank hurt her and she resented the fact that she found it so easy. Dishonesty had always served her well. As a prostitute, it had become second nature. Most of her clients were liars and she was a liar too; she faked everything. And now, as Petra, lying was as vital to her life as blood itself. It was the only guarantor of the possibility of a future. Lying to Frank, however, felt worse than infidelity. A lie, once established, had to be backed up by other lies which, themselves, had to be secured by yet more. Once started, the process never ended. Lies infected every part of the relationship. No conversation was spared, no thought was free to be idly thought; it had to be screened for security. More than once, Petra had come to the conclusion that what she felt for Frank didn’t really exist. That it was just another lie. After all, if the feeling was so stained by deception, what could it honestly be? Logic offered her no answer. All she knew was that there was no antidote to the rush she got when she thought about Frank. There was no remedy for his touch.