At the door, before he quietly, carefully, closed it, as he had five years before, he paused and used the back of his hand to smear away the wetness from his face.
He had trekked up the long hill of the Elbchaussee, had left the river behind him. Malachy came to Blankenese and by the station he found a board with a street map. Nothing written down, everything remembered. He searched for the name and found a side turning that was scarcely visible on the map. But the dusk had not yet come, and he walked in the opposite direction towards parkland, away from the side turning, sat on a bench and waited for darkness.
Chapter Twelve
Hours had passed. The rain had come on heavier, then eased, but the wind was fierce. The rain had penetrated the material of his heavy coat and the wind pushed the damp deeper. But in the park, where he sat on the bench and shivered and the cold caught at his bones, night had fallen. Malachy stood up, then stepped out.
Why? That there was no clear reason for the actions he had taken, merely a higher step on the ladder, seemed of small importance to him. He had little conception of what it would mean to his life if he teetered on the top rung… but he did not believe he could escape it. A kaleidoscope of images sped in his mind, the faces of those who had been kind, generous to him: old Cloughie at school, Adam Barnett, war studies tutor at the military academy, Brian Arnold, his guide into Intelligence at Chicksands… All would now have rooted for him. Then he heard the sneers, jibes, cruelty of those who had denied him…
Best foot forward, Malachy, and fast, before courage was lost.
He left the park and walked up into the village of Blankenese. There would have been communities like this one in Surrey, Berkshire and Cheshire. He passed the dim-lit windows of shops for antique furniture, imported clothes and food, and restaurants with candles at the tables and laughter, rows of parked Mercedes and BMW high-performance cars. He went through the village, and thought that prosperity oozed from it and comfort. He reached across a low, newly painted white wicket fence and grabbed a handful of earth from a hoed bed, then bent and smeared it on his shoes. He pulled his wool hat lower on his forehead and lifted the collar of his overcoat higher. He paused at a crossroads, took bearings from the signs, then headed on. He was hungry, thirsty, chilled, but the combination made his senses keen.
Alert, he saw the camera.
The stanchion to hold it was on a high street-light on the main road inland from the village. Branches from a tree wove a trellis of obstructions round the post at a level lower than the camera and the light. Its position surprised him, not right for monitoring traffic in a road leading out of a village centre. A hundred metres past the light, the camera, was the side road leading off to the right. He went towards the camera, under it, and its lens would only have caught the dark mass of his coat and hat, not registered his face.
Opposite the side road was a narrow entrance into a garden. A hedge had been clipped around the doorway, which was recessed in the beech leaves that the winter had not stripped. He was in shadow when he crouched on the step, and he tucked his dirt-stained shoes under himself; a man or woman with a dog would have been beside him before he was noticed.
He could see up the side road, and there were distant lights behind trees and hedges, above fences and walls. He settled.
He did not know yet which was Timo Rahman's home. He did not know where Timo Rahman would meet Ricky Capel. Where else to be, what else to do?
He could not have gone to every hotel in Hamburg, stood at the reception desks and asked if Ricky Capel, importer of narcotics to the United Kingdom, stayed there. This was the only place to begin his vigil.
Cars sped along the main road but their lights did not find him. He was protected by the hedge and the shadows. The cold racked him. He huddled.
It happened very quickly, as his head was clouded with thoughts, all useless.
A car coming down the main road, big headlights powering in front of it. A car coming up the road and braking hard, indicators winking for a turn to the right. The Mercedes was stationary and the approaching lights speared through its windscreen.
He saw the face, the smooth skin that was almost juvenile. The face had been above him. The headlights of the oncoming car lit the eyes. The Mercedes swung into the side road.
Malachy watched the track of its lights, then saw it turn in, and lost it.
He pushed himself up – his hips and knees ached – then walked forward.
The gates closed behind the car.
Ricky looked around him. The security lights showed him the house, their beams spilling out on to lawns and beds of shrub; it was a big pad, impressive, but not a mansion, not like some of the places they had passed on the drive here. The driver had not spoken a word that Ricky had understood. At the reception desk, the skinny bitch who had rung up to his room and called him down had led him to the swing doors, pointed to the parking area and the Mercedes and told him it had been sent to collect him. Half a day and half an evening he had been stuck in his bloody hotel room, and at the end of it there was no Timo Rahman to meet him personally, and to apologize that he had been left for nine hours to kick his heels; just a driver he couldn't understand, who had gripped his hand, shaken it and half crushed his fist.
He was not one to hang about: first, he'd find out where the little shit-face was, where Enver, who had dumped him, had gone, and why; second, he'd get the business done, whatever; third, he'd ask for the arrangements to be made for his flight home in the morning. He waited in the car for the driver to open the door for him, and waited
… The bastard didn't: he was at the front door, beckoning him to follow, like he was dirt. His temper was high and the blood pounded in him, as it had all through the hours in the hotel room – disrespect was shown him.
The front door was open. He saw a short, squat little beggar, slacks and an open-necked shirt, in the hall.
He had never met Timo Rahman but instinctively knew him. All the deals with the Hamburg end for the shipment of packages had been handled by Enver, the nephew. All the loads of immigrants brought in on the lorries he'd brokered had been dealt with by Enver. He felt uncertain, rare for him, and alone – awkward because he wore a suit and a tie. The man in the hall, Timo Rahman, flexed his hands in front of his groin, then slid them behind his back. Ricky had the message, and didn't like it. He chucked the car door open, climbed out, slammed it shut, stamped across the gravel and came to the step. He looked into Timo Rahman's eyes – Ricky wasn't tall, but he was taller than the man. Ricky backed off from no one. But he saw the eyes. The hall lights shone in them. Ricky wiped from his mind what he was going to say about the shit-face, Enver.
His shoulders were grasped, he smelt the lotion, he was kissed on each cheek and the lips – cold as bloody death – brushed his skin.
In accented English. 'You are welcome, Ricky Capel.'
'Good to be here, Mr Rahman.'
'And your journey was satisfactory?'
'No problems, Mr Rahman.'
'I am grateful you were able to find time in your busy life to visit me.'
'A pleasure, Mr Rahman.'
The eyes never left Ricky's. Years back, when he was a kid and when Mikey wasn't away, they had gone as a family, with the girls, to the zoo up in London, and they'd taken in the reptile house, and there had been snakes, most of them curled up and asleep, but a cobra had had its head up, had hissed and shown its fangs at the glass, and its eyes had watched them. He couldn't hold Timo Rahman's gaze and he was looking down at the carpet and saw that his feet shuffled, like he had nerves. His arm was gripped at the elbow.