by Mark Burnell
Even as her eyes adjusted to the shade she saw the merchant reacting to her, bending down to pick up something from behind a stack of wooden boxes. With her left hand Petra reached for her throat and tugged the cross. The leather cord gave way easily. The merchant was rising, silhouetted against the sunlight flooding the street. Her right hand grasped the bottom of the cross, pulling away the polished mahogany scabbard to reveal a three-inch serrated steel spike.
The merchant raised his revolver. Petra dived, clattering into him before he could fire. They spilled across sacks of paprika and saffron. In clouds of scarlet and gold she aimed for his neck but missed, instead ramming the spike through the soft flesh behind the jawbone up into the tongue. He went into spasm as she grabbed his revolver, clambered over him, spun round and waited for the first of the chasing pair to appear. Four shots later they were both down, and Petra Reuter was on the run again.
The Hotel Sahara was between Rue Zitoune el-Qedim and Rue de Bab Agnaou, the room itself overlooking the street. Petra closed the door behind her. Deep blue wooden shutters excluded most of the daylight. It was cool in the darkness.
There was a small chest of drawers by one wall. Petra opened the top right drawer. She'd already removed the back panel so that it could be pulled clear. She dropped to a crouch, reached inside and found the plastic pouch taped to the underside. The pouch contained an old Walther P38K, an adaptation of the standard P38, the barrel cut to seven centimetres to make it easier to conceal. She placed the gun on top of the chest of drawers.
Her pulse was still speeding and she was soaked – mostly sweat, some blood – the dust and dirt of the Mellah caking her skin.
There was a loud bang. She reached for the Walther. The bang was followed by the drone of an engine. A moped, its feeble diesel spluttering beneath her window. A backfire, not a shot, prompting a half-hearted smile.
Across town they would be waiting for her at the Hotel Mirage; Maria Gilardini's clothes were still in her room, her toothbrush by the sink, her air ticket wedged between the pages of a paperback on the bedside table.
Petra opened the shutters a little, dust motes floating in the slice of sunlight. In the corner of the room was a rucksack secured by a padlock. She opened it, rummaged through the contents for the first-aid wallet, which she unfolded on the bed. Then she stripped to her underwear and examined herself in the mirror over the basin. Her ribs were beginning to bruise. Among the grazes were cuts containing splinters of glass.
Mostovoi had known there was no deal; not at first – he’d agreed to meet her, after all – but eventually. The more she considered it, the more convinced of it she became. He hadn't asked enough questions about Klim to be so sure of his doubt. The fact that he'd allowed himself to be met proved that he was interested – with so much money at stake, that was inevitable – and yet he'd known. Or suspected, at least.
She used tweezers to extract the shards of glass, then dressed the worst cuts. Next she took the scissors to her hair, losing six inches to the shoulder. Not a new look, just an alteration. She put in a pair of blue contact lenses to match those in the photograph of the passport: Mary Reid, visiting from London, born in Leeds, aged twenty-seven, aromatherapist. Rather than Petra Reuter, visiting from anywhere in the world, born in Hamburg, aged thirty-five, assassin.
The hair and the contacts were useful, but Petra knew there were more significant factors in changing an identity; deportment and dress. When Mary Reid moved, she shuffled. When she sat, she slouched. The way she carried herself would allow her to vanish in a crowd. So would the clothes she wore, and since Mary Reid was on holiday they were appropriate: creased cream linen three-quarter-length trousers, leather sandals from a local market, a faded lilac T-shirt from Phuket, a triple string of coral beads around her throat.
She abandoned the rucksack and the Walther P38K, taking only a small knapsack with a few things: some crumpled clothes, a wash-bag, a battered Walkman, four CDs, a Kodak disposable camera and a book. Even though her room was prepaid, she told no one she was leaving. She caught a bus to the airport and a Royal Air Maroc flight to Paris. At Charles de Gaulle she checked in for a British Airways connection and then made a call to a London number.
Flight BA329 from Paris touched down a few minutes early at ten to ten. By ten past, having only handluggage, she was clear of Customs. The courier met her in the Arrivals hall. He was pushing a trolley with a large leather holdall on it. She placed the knapsack next to the holdall and they headed for the exit.
'Good flight?'
'Fine.'
'Debriefing tomorrow morning. Eleven.'
At the exit Petra picked up the leather holdall and the man disappeared through the doors with her knapsack. She turned back and made for the Underground. As the train rattled towards west London she opened the holdall. Her mobile phone was in a side pocket. She switched it on and made a call. When she got no answer she tried another number.
She knew it was unprofessional, but she didn't care. She was tired, she was hurt, what she needed was rest. But what she wanted was something to take away the bitter taste.
After the call she went through the holdall: dirty clothes rolled into a ball – her dirty clothes – and another wash-bag, again hers. In another side pocket she found credit cards, her passport and some cash: a mixture of euros, sterling and a few thousand Uzbek sum. There was a Visa card receipt for the Hotel Tashkent and an Uzbekistan Airways ticket stub: Amsterdam-Tashkent-Amsterdam. In the main section of the holdall there was a plastic bag from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, a bottle of Veuve Cliquot inside, complete with euro receipt.
Much as it hurt her to admit it, she admired their craft. If nothing else, they were thorough.
At the bottom of the bag was a digital voice recorder with twenty-one used files in two folders. Also a Tamrac camera bag containing six used rolls of Centuria Super Konica film, a Nikon F80, a Sekonic light meter, three lenses and a digital Canon. She knew what was on the Canon and the rolls of film: details from the Fergana valley, home to an extremist Uzbek Islamic militia.
At Green Park she swapped from the Piccadilly Line to the Victoria Line, and at Stockwell from the Victoria Line to the Northern Line. From Clapham South she walked. It took five minutes to reach the address, which was sandwiched between Wandsworth Common and Clapham Common, a street of large, comfortable semi-detached Victorian houses. Volvos and Range Rovers lined both kerbs.
Karen Cunningham let her in. They kissed on both cheeks, hugged, left the holdall in the hall and made their way through the house to the garden at the rear. A dozen people sat around a wooden table. Smoke rose from a dying barbecue in a far corner of the garden.
'Stephanie!'
Her fourth name of the day.
From the far side of the table Mark was coming towards her. He wore the collarless cotton shirt she'd bought for him, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. They kissed. She noticed he was barefoot.
They made space for her at the table. Someone poured her a glass of red wine. She knew all the faces in the flickering candlelight. Not well, or in her own right, but through Mark. After the welcome the conversation resumed. She picked at the remains of some potato salad as she drank, content not to say too much. Gradually the alcohol worked its temporary magic, purging her pain. Purging Petra.
From Marrakech to Clapham, from Mostovoi to these people, with their careers, their children, their two foreign holidays a year. From a steel spike to a glass of wine, from one continent to another. Two worlds, each as divorced from the other as she was from any other version of herself.
It was after midnight when Mark leaned towards her, frowning, and said, 'It's not the hair. It's something else …'
'What are you talking about?'
'There's something … different about you.'
'You're imagining it.'
He shook his head. 'Got it. It's your eyes.'
For a moment there was panic. Then came the recovery, complete with a playful smile, while the li
e formed. 'I was wondering how long it would take you to notice.'
'They're blue.'
'Coloured lenses. Found them in Amsterdam. Pretty cool, don't you think?'
Chapter 1
Mark Hamilton was lying on his front, snoring into his pillow, one foot hanging over the end of a bed that wasn't built for a man of six foot four. Stephanie looked at the scar tissue running across his central and lower back. She had scar tissue of her own – on the front and back of her left shoulder – but, unlike Mark's scars, hers were cosmetic, surgically applied to mimic a bullet's entry and exit wound.
She glanced at Mark's bedside clock. Five to six. She tiptoed to the kitchen to make coffee. A bottle of Rioja stood by the sink, two-thirds drunk. Which was how they'd felt by the time they'd returned to Mark's flat shortly after one. Despite that, he'd opened the Rioja, put on a CD, Ether Song by Turin Brakes, and they'd talked. About nothing in particular. After three weeks, it was enough simply to be together again. Normally her trips abroad only lasted a few days.
When he'd said he was going to bed, just after three, she'd said she wouldn't be far behind. But she'd waited until he was asleep, even then keeping her T-shirt on as she lay beside him; she was too tired to answer the questions he would inevitably ask when he saw her naked.
Mark owned a place on a corner of Queen's Gate Mews, off Gloucester Road. The ground floor was a garage, which he used for storage. A steep, narrow staircase led to the first floor, where he lived, and a stepladder that doubled as a fire escape led to the roof, which was flat, and which was where Stephanie took her mug of coffee, having pulled on a pair of ripped jeans.
Above, in a pale pink sky, intercontinental flights lined up for Heathrow. Below, an Alfa Romeo rumbled over cobbles. In the distance, an alarm bell was ringing. She cupped the hot mug with both hands and smiled.
One year to the day.
She'd gone to the Dolomites to unwind. Stephanie had always found that climbing cleared the mind of clutter. It had become part of her routine after a Magenta House contract: a few days away by herself, the local climbing guides her only source of social interaction. By the time she returned to London, more often than not, she'd rinsed the contract from her system.
Mark was staying at the same hotel in a party of six. She noticed him the first day they arrived, her ear drawn to the group by language; they were the only English in the hotel. Over two days, she crossed them in the dining room, at the bar, in the lobby and outside on the observation deck. He was the tallest and least obviously attractive of them, with a storm of dark hair and a perfect climber's face: craggy, marked with ledges and ridges.
On the third day Stephanie lost her grip during an afternoon traverse of an uncomplicated face. The rope snagged her, twisting her sharply to the right. Her left toe was still locked into a small hold. She felt a sharp pinch in her left hip and chose to walk back to the hotel to try to work off any stiffness. Later she took a cup of hot chocolate onto the wooden observation deck. Mark was in a deckchair, reading a Robert Wilson paperback.
Not wanting any conversation, Stephanie walked to the far end and leaned on the rail. It had been a hot, sunny day, but late afternoon brought with it the first hint of a sharp chill. She drank the chocolate and the mountain air, and watched shadows creep as the sun slid. When she'd finished, she walked back along the deck. They were still the only people on it and he was looking straight at her. Not at her eyes, but at her body. Without any attempt to disguise it.
Irritated, Stephanie said, sharply, 'You're staring.'
'You're limping.'
Not the apology she'd anticipated. 'Hardly.'
'Does it hurt?'
'It's nothing. It's just my hip.'
'Actually, it's your sacro-iliac joint.'
'Sorry?'
'To you, your lower back.'
'What are you? An osteopath?'
'A chiropractor.'
'And a man with an answer for everything.'
'Do you want me to prove it to you?'
She tilted her head to one side. 'Are you for real?'
'Are you?'
Half an hour later they were in her bedroom; stained floorboards, thick rugs, ageing cream wallpaper with rural scenes in a pale blue print. She could smell the dried lavender in the frosted glass bowl on the chest of drawers. Beside a lacquered table there was a full-length mirror. Stephanie stood in front of it with Mark behind her. Only now did she appreciate how large he was. He completely framed her in the reflection. She'd pulled off her jersey and shirt, and could see her black bra through the thin cotton of her T-shirt.
Mark reached out and touched her, two fingers pressing softly at the base of her neck. It was barely contact, but it sent a pulse through her. Slowly, he walked the fingers down her spine.
'Why do you climb?'
'It's in my blood,' Stephanie said, her voice no more than a murmur. 'My mother was a fantastic climber, more at home in the mountains than at home. What about you?'
'To relax. And because I have friends who climb.'
'I don't have any friends who climb.'
'Then you're worse than us. In a monogamous relationship with the rock-face? I don't think I've ever heard of anything so self-centred.'
'You might be right.'
To relax, he'd said. Not for the thrill, or the sense of achievement. That was how she felt. Besides, as Petra, Stephanie found herself in situations where the adrenalin flowed faster than it ever could clinging to the slick underbelly of a precarious overhang.
'Here we are.' His fingers stopped, just above the top of her jeans. Very gently, he pressed against a point. Stephanie felt heat bloom beneath. Then he placed a forefinger on either shoulder. 'Look in the mirror. You’ve dropped a little through the left.'
It was true. She could see a marginal difference.
'Can you do something about it?'
Mark looked around the room. 'Well, normally I'd use a bench for something like this, but I'll see what I can do.'
'See what you can do?'
He smiled, a fissure forming in the rock-face. 'I'm joking. You'll be fine. You don't have a desk in here, so we'll use your bed.'
Stephanie felt she ought to say something but couldn't.
Mark said, 'Let's hope it's not too soft. I'd like you to undo your jeans.'
She raised her eyebrows at him in the mirror.
'You're lucky I haven't asked you to take off your T-shirt.'
She really couldn't gauge him at all. 'Do you want me to?'
'You don't have to.'
But she did, before undoing her jeans. 'Is that better?'
'That's fine. But you really didn't have to.'
He moved closer to her and laid a coarse hand on one hip. Then the other hand settled on the other hip. She felt radiated heat on her naked back.
When he manipulated her, the conversation dried up. She let his hands guide her, let him turn her, position her, let him use his weight against her. His finger tips seemed to carry an electrical charge.
Any moment now …
There was no reason for it. It was just a feeling. An assumption. That whatever was happening was mutual. One part of her felt wonderfully relaxed while another part burned in anticipation. But of what, exactly? She closed her eyes and waited. For a kiss, perhaps. Or for a moment when his fingers deviated from the professional to the personal.
Instead, his hands left her body. 'That's it. You're done.'
She opened her eyes. 'What?'
'You've been manipulated.'
Said with a grin. Stephanie wanted to be annoyed, but wasn't. 'Well … thank you, anyway. Do I owe you something?'
He shook his head. 'There's no charge.'
'I wouldn't say that.'
He smiled, a little embarrassed, it seemed. 'I'll be going.'
'Why?'
'I'm sorry?'
'Stay.'
Mark said nothing.
'Stay.'
The smile had gone. 'Are you sure?'
'I'm sure.'
'What time is it?'
'Why?'
'I just want to know the time.'
Stephanie looked at her watch. 'It's eight minutes past six.'
The first time they made love it was as though the manipulation had never stopped. More than anything, it was his hands that made love to her. Stephanie was almost entirely passive. There were moments when she didn't feel she had a choice.
Two-thirty in the morning. Stephanie ran her fingers over the scars on his back. With scars of her own and a library of scars inflicted upon others, she had to ask.
'It was eleven years ago on Nanga Parbat, coming down the Diamir Face. With hindsight, we shouldn't have been there at all. It was a bad team, no cohesion, no leadership. But, being arrogant, we went up anyway. During the descent there was an avalanche. Afterwards we were all over the place. Two of our group died. I would have died too, but I was lucky. Dom stayed with me. He kept me from freezing to death. As for Keller, our team leader, he was close to us but never tried to reach us. He didn't even attempt to communicate with us. We watched him disappear.'
'He died?'
'We assume so. His body was never recovered.'
'And you?'
'Again, in a strange way, I was lucky. Broken ribs, crushed discs, two hairline fractures, muscle separation, some nerve damage, but no permanent spinal damage.'
'That's a painful kind of luck.'
'It led me to my career.'
'I'm not sure I'd have reacted to a back injury in the same way.'
'A lot of people say that. For me, I think becoming a chiropractor was a Pauline conversion. It's what I'm supposed to do.'
'And climbing again – how hard was that?'
'It was gradual, rather than hard. I didn't think about it for three years. Now it's not an issue. The only thing that's changed is my ambition. Before the accident I had a hit list of climbs and peaks. These days those things don't matter to me.'
