The man stumbled across the trolley, tipping the precariously balanced suitcases off with a crash. Purkiss stepped aside, watched the man right himself and help to load the suitcases on again. There was no sign of the blade; he must have concealed it deftly.
Purkiss backed away from the queue, keeping the man in his line of sight. The man apparently ignored him, fussing over the suitcases he’d knocked over. Purkiss surveyed the environment, looking for others who might be poised to take over and close in.
Three of them, then, so far. The man from the coffee shop, the woman, and this man.
If he could identify them all, it would give him an edge. Not much of one, but at least he’d know his enemy’s numbers. He needed to draw any others out, but it meant detaching himself from the public and putting himself in a position in which he could be cornered. And that could prove fatal.
The burning in Purkiss’s chest and abdomen had eased, but had been replaced by a cramping which in itself provoked nausea. He hoped diarrhoea wasn’t next in the line of symptoms. Around him, the crowd appeared to be moving in slow motion, as if underwater, and the noises filtering into his ears seemed echoing and distant.
Perhaps there had been some kind of neuromodulatory agent in the poison, after all.
Purkiss needed cold air, and quickly. He could always exit the terminal, inhale a few lungfuls, and then return. And by going outside, he might draw out further enemy elements.
He reached the glass façade of the terminal and was approaching the sliding doors when the woman appeared at his side, walking in the same direction as him, and murmured in English: ‘Turn around immediately.’
Purkiss reacted more quickly than he’d believed himself capable of, pivoting on one foot and jabbing the stiffened fingers of his right hand upward at a point just below her breastbone. It was a potentially incapacitating blow which had the advantage of preventing the recipient from crying out, and was often useful in public places for subduing an opponent while attracting the minimum of attention.
But his aim was off, and she turned her body so that his fingertips jabbed into her upper arm. He grabbed the arm, felt unsteadiness drag at his legs, and took a second to regain his balance.
She caught him and pressed in close so that he leaned against her, as if they were two lovers parting or reuniting. He tensed his abdomen against the blade that would surely slip in, cold and hard.
In his ear, she whispered: ‘There are four of them waiting outside. You’re in no fit state to confront them. They’ll take you down easily. Stay inside the terminal.’
‘Why —’ he started to say, but found he couldn’t complete the thought. He let her turn him slowly, with an arm around his waist, and he saw the hubbub of the terminal swing back into shaky view.
‘What happened to you?’ she said, quietly but conversationally, as they walked slowly back towards the check-in area.
‘Some kind of toxin,’ he said. ‘I expelled most of it, I think.’ He realised now what he had been meaning to ask: why are you protecting me?
As if she’d read his thoughts, she said: ‘I’m a friend. There are at least two of them inside the terminal. Probably more. And four outside. All male.’
Purkiss said, ‘Another exit. There must be.’ He shook his head, the disjointed word order sounding stupid to him. ‘A service tunnel.’
‘No. Too easy to get trapped in.’ She said, ‘I have an idea.’
She told him. He nodded.
‘What’s your name?’ he said.
‘Deacon.’
‘I’m —’
‘Purkiss,’ she finished. ‘I know.’
They reached a pair of police officers armed with rifles, who stood stockily, their impassive gazes trained on the crowds.
‘Excuse me,’ the woman said, still in English. ‘My boyfriend. He’s not well.’
The police officers glanced at her, then at Purkiss. Purkiss realised for the first time that the sweat was pouring off him, matting his hair and his clothes to his skin.
The policemen’s eyes hardened.
Purkiss stared at them, his eyes wide.
The policemen turned towards him and the woman.
Purkiss broke free from the woman’s grasp and, with a yell, began running across the concourse, cannoning into people.
Even if he hadn’t intended to be caught, he probably wouldn’t have got far. He felt his feet kicked out from under him and landed hard on the tiled floor, his head slamming against the ground. The floor was cold against his cheek as he felt his arms yanked up behind him and the cuffs biting into his wrists.
The woman, Deacon if that was her real name, stood several yards away, her hand up over her mouth, her eyes stricken.
Nine
They released Purkiss four hours later.
He’d expected to be detained longer, but he supposed they were overstretched, and needed to focus their manpower and energies on more worthy targets. The police captain had watched Purkiss as he passed on the way out of the interrogation room, his tongue a pinched strip of white between his teeth, the contempt in his gaze palpable.
A pair of junior officers escorted Purkiss into the waiting room of the station, where the woman, Deacon, sat nursing a styrofoam cup of coffee. She rose as he approached, put her arms round him in a gesture that combined relief and exasperation.
‘Let’s go home,’ Purkiss muttered.
He felt the officers’ eyes on his back until he and Deacon were through the front doors. Outside, it was early afternoon, the skies clearer than they’d been on his arrival at the airport that morning but still filmed over with a thin cloud layer.
‘I rented a car while you were in there,’ she said.
She’d chosen a VW Passat, solid and unremarkable. Purkiss dropped into the passenger seat and sat with his head pressed back, his eyes open. He waited until she’d pulled out into the light traffic before he said: ‘Who are you?’
She ignored the question. ‘I presume you held up in there.’
Purkiss had been questioned by a total of four different people. Two were senior police detectives. The other two didn’t introduce themselves, but were almost certainly BfV, the German domestic intelligence service. He’d explained, in tones that were alternately sheepish and self-righteous, that he’d taken a pill that morning which he’d been given in a club in Rome the previous night. It had made him paranoid, caused him to hallucinate. When he’d seen the two armed policemen at the airport, he’d panicked, and had run.
They’d studied his passport. Did he have any other ID on him, they’d wanted to know? He said he must have lost his wallet. Which was perfectly true.
He and his girlfriend, Miss Michelle Havers — Deacon had told him that was the name on the passport she was using — were tourists from London. They’d arrived that morning from Rome on separate flights, because they’d met in Rome a few days earlier and had discovered they were both heading to Frankfurt, albeit at different times. He’d taken the pill just before the flight, and by the time he met Michelle at Frankfurt Airport he’d already started to feel its negative effects.
The police detectives lectured him on the dangers of illicit substances. Purkiss concurred, said he’d never do anything like it again. By the time the two security agents had questioned him and had left, the detectives’ interest in him was clearly waning. At last, they sent him on his way.
‘Yes,’ Purkiss said to Deacon. ‘I held up.’
As a tactic, it had worked. His arrest had meant he and Deacon had been spirited out of the airport under armed guard. His opponents in the terminal would have been unable to intervene. He’d given them the slip, for now at least.