Something flashed past her head. She followed the movement and saw the insect landing on the handle of her bedroom door. Trying not to move more than necessary, not to disturb the air and make the creature take off again, Nina made her way towards it. The mosquito stood unsuspectingly rubbing its legs together as she raised the newspaper.
Just as she was about to swat, she heard a soft click on the other side of the door. Nina held her breath. It sounded as though someone had just closed the door to the apartment behind them. ‘Going out or coming in’? She wondered, straining to listen. She thought that she could make out faint footsteps. ‘Could just be my imagination, though. Is it Sam? Bit late for Sam. He’s usually back before one, and he said he was giving up the late-night walks. Purdue? Could be… but would he be creeping around? He’d just walk in and go straight to his room, surely…’
The mosquito had taken flight. Nina reached for the door handle and pushed it down swiftly, pulling the door open so that the light from her room suddenly spilled into the sitting room.
The figure in the sitting room froze. It was definitely not Sam or Purdue. It was not Matteus. It was no-one Nina had ever seen before. Dressed in black, hair covered, face concealed under a balaclava. A little taller than Nina, but impossible to discern from its androgynous shape whether the figure was male or female.
As Nina stood poised and tense, waiting for the stranger either to attack her or to turn tail and run, the silence was broken by a low chuckle.
“A rolled-up newspaper?” The stranger’s voice fell infuriatingly between the sound of a low-voiced female and a high-voiced man, offering Nina no clues at all. “You were going to tap me on the nose, perhaps, like a badly behaved puppy?”
“Who are you?” Nina demanded. “What do you want?”
“Tell me where to find Purdue.”
“No.”
“Very well then…” The figure moved towards the nearest door, untroubled by Nina’s lack of complicity, evidently certain that Purdue could be found in one of those rooms.
Nina lunged forward, ready to shove the stranger out of the way. “Get out!” she screamed. The dark figure dodged, and then retreated. It hesitated for a second, caught between the bedroom doors and the apartment door.
“I’ll go,” the stranger said. “But tell him Renata is waiting, and she will not wait much longer.”
In an instant the figure was gone, slipping out into the stairwell. Nina heard the front door open and close, then jumped as the bedroom door that she had been guarding swung open behind her.
“Nina? Are you alright? What’s happening?” Sam took in the scene around them, looking for any signs of struggle or harm.
Purdue appeared from the other room a moment later, his dressing gown hastily thrown on, his thin face white. “Who was it, Nina?” he asked in an urgent whisper.
“I don’t know,” she replied, beginning to shake as the initial adrenaline rush wore off. “But whoever it was they were looking for you, and there was a message. Renata won’t wait much longer. What’s happening this—” She fell silent as Purdue waved a hand.
“No time for that now,” he whispered, his voice grave and his face ashen. “We have to leave at once. This place is no longer safe. Pack whatever you have, then come to me — separately — and I will tell you where to wait for instructions from Matteus. Go. Now!”
Sam and Nina did not argue. They dashed into their rooms and began to gather their few belongings immediately.
Chapter Ten
The cab pulled up in the drop off zone outside Amerigo Vespucci Airport. Sam climbed out, reclaimed his bag from the driver and handed over his money. Matteus had already handled his check-in. All he had to do was go straight through security, head for the gate and he would be out of Florence within the hour.
His first destination was Frankfurt, where he had been instructed to make his way to a particular coffee shop and report the loss of his wallet. The wallet that they would give him would contain his next ticket. He had not been told which city he would end up in, but he knew that when he arrived he was to go to the main railway station. Whatever he was to do next, Matteus assured him it would be evident.
Sam stuck his hand in his pocket to check for his passport. ‘Kevin Anderson,’ he reminded himself. ‘I am Kevin Anderson, heading home via Frankfurt. If anyone asks while I’m on this leg of the journey, I’m on my way home from Florence. I’m heading for Glasgow. And if anyone asks while I’m on the next leg, Glasgow is where I came from. Easy enough. I’m not planning to chat to anyone anyway.’
At security he shucked off his shoes, dropped his belt and jacket into the plastic tray and shuffled obediently through the metal detector. It beeped. Sam stepped to the side, stretched out his arms and allowed the security guard to run the wand over him. It came up with nothing. He stood patiently, letting himself be patted down. ‘Today of all days,’ he thought. ‘I know I don’t have anything metal on me.’
“I am sorry, Sir,” said the security guard. “Just one of those things. You can go.”
Sam collected his possessions and looked for a convenient spot to stop and put his shoes back on. As he walked away from security, he thought he saw one of the guards watching him suspiciously. ‘That’s their job, I suppose,’ he told himself. ‘Nothing to worry about. I feel guilty enough going through airport security even when I’m using my real passport. It’s nothing. Just a stupid feeling. Like when you walk past a policeman and think you’re going to get done for something even though you can’t imagine what.’
Nevertheless, he kept an eye out as he wandered through to the waiting area. It was possible that the security guard was scheduled to begin patrolling through duty free right at that moment. Sam told himself firmly that it was coincidence. ‘Confirmation bias,’ he said to himself. ‘You’re on the lookout for trouble, so you see trouble. You think you’re being followed, so you see people following you everywhere. It’s nothing.’
He walked into a newsagent and scanned the racks. He did not have long before his flight, but he would be glad of something to read and hide behind. ‘It’s a great way to prevent conversations,’ he thought. ‘No sense in running the risk that today will be the day when I run into that one chatty person who’ll end up in the seat next to me on the plane. I can do without that just now.’
The newspapers left him cold. All the headlines were depressing, not just on account of their content but because of the odd pang of nostalgia that shot through Sam as he looked at them and remembered the days when he had been the one writing them. He turned his attention to the magazines instead. A vast array of publications lay before him, ranging from celebrity gossip to obscure specialist interest. As tempting as it was to pick up a copy of Art Doll Quarterly for irony’s sake — since his goal was to blend in rather than excite comment he decided to stick to something mainstream and picked up National Geographic.
‘That’ll do,’ he thought. ‘It doesn’t pin me down to a specific country, either. I don’t want to make it obvious where I might be from or where I’m going.’
Having paid for his purchases he returned to the main concourse, only to see that the security guard was there again, standing directly opposite the shop Sam had come from. He certainly looked as if he was waiting for Sam. He also looked familiar, though Sam could not place him, especially not at this distance. All he could tell was that he was looking at a reasonably tall, wiry male, with somewhat craggy features that were partly obscured by dark glasses. ‘Stick a uniform and a pair of shades on me and I could be looking at myself,’ Sam thought. ‘It’s no-one I know. I’m just winding myself up now.’