‘I didn’t know I had changed,’ he said, without meaning it.
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she replied, hearing a tone he hadn’t intended her to. ‘I think it’s a positive thing.’ She examined him, and ran slim fingers through his hair. ‘Definitely a good change.’
He smiled to show he agreed, even if he didn’t. ‘I’m glad you think so. And I take it you’re happy I called?’
She smiled and lightly hit him on the arm. ‘Of course I am.’
They walked some more.
‘Excuse me,’ a woman said in British-accented English, stepping into their path.
She was in her late twenties, accompanied by a man who looked thirty, presumably her boyfriend or husband. They were both in casual clothes, jeans, T-shirts, athletics shoes. The guy’s hair was dark, the woman’s blonde. She had a camera in hand. They were both smiling. Big, excitable grins. Tourists.
‘Excuse me,’ the woman said again, speaking slowly, deliberately, as if to a child, long spaces between each word, drawing out each syllable for emphasis, ‘would you take a picture of us, please?’ She made a big deal of pointing at the camera and then to her boyfriend and herself.
‘Sure, of course,’ Victor said back.
He would have thought it impossible, but their smiles grew wider. ‘Oh, you speak English. Great. Thank you so much.’
Adrianna said, ‘You’re British, right?’
The blonde woman made a small laugh. ‘Is it that obvious?’
Victor raised an eyebrow. ‘British people have a certain way of speaking abroad.’
‘We do, don’t we? Thanks again for doing this.’
He said, ‘It’s no trouble,’ even though it was. Had he been alone he would have pretended not to speak the language and moved on. He didn’t like any contact that was not on his terms, but he didn’t want to show that in front of Adrianna.
The female tourist handed over her camera. ‘If you could get it so the opera house is in the background, that would be great.’
‘No problem.’
He gestured. ‘You might want to move closer together.’
‘Oh yeah, sure.’
She leaned closer to her boyfriend, wrapping her arms around him as though he might run away if she didn’t hang on tight. He put his arm around her shoulder, though somewhat stiffly. British reserve.
Victor stepped back and went down to one knee to get them both in the centre of the frame, with the opera house in the background, said, ‘Say cheese.’ and took the photo. He handed back the camera. ‘Your first photo in Sofia,’ he noted from the camera’s display. ‘I’m honoured.’
The couple looked at the image. ‘Oh, that’s perfect. Thank you so much.’ She nudged the boyfriend. ‘Wait ’til Andy and Meg see this.’
With lots more thank-yous the couple departed, leaving Adrianna and Victor alone again. Adrianna took his hands in hers.
‘Those two made a cute pair,’ she said, ‘didn’t they?’
Victor nodded. He wasn’t sure what was cute and what wasn’t.
‘I can imagine them old and grey and still just as in love.’
Victor nodded again. He found it impossible to imagine such things.
She rubbed his arms. ‘Do you ever think about settling down, Emmanuel; finding yourself a nice wife to pass you your slippers?’
‘Do wives still fetch their husbands’ slippers?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said with a shrug. ‘I guess for the right man they might.’
There wasn’t anything in her eyes Victor couldn’t read. He asked, ‘What would you like to do now?’
‘I’m not sure. Are you hungry yet?’
‘I could eat if you’re ready for dinner.’
‘I’ve been ready for dinner for the last two hours. This diet is killing me.’
Victor knew a good Indian restaurant about twenty minutes’ walk north, but Adrianna was too hungry to wait so they took a cab. He had aloo tika ragda to start, followed by paneer makhani. Adrianna started with bhel puri and then ate mushroom matar hara pyaz. The food was excellent, aromatic and flavoursome but without being excessively spicy. For dessert they both ordered mango ice cream. It came in a cone shape. After their meal they drank milky Indian tea while Adrianna talked about the possibility of going back to university.
‘I’m thinking about getting a PhD,’ she explained. ‘I miss studying. Reading History at Cambridge was one of the best times of my life. I miss books. I miss being academic. I hardly ever even get time to read the paper these days. It sounds overly dramatic, I know, but sometimes I feel like I’m letting my intelligence slip away.’
‘It sounds like you’ve already made up your mind.’
‘It does, doesn’t it? I think I have.’
‘Would you go back to Cambridge to study or somewhere new?’
Mentioning Cambridge made him remember the British couple. Specifically, the blonde woman. Tourists didn’t usually ask him to take pictures. Victor gave off a subtle leave-me-alone vibe that most people subconsciously heeded, but it didn’t always work. He could only go so far with negative body language. If he was too unapproachable, people would remember him. Better to be the kind of man some people were happy to talk to, than the kind of rude man no one forgot. And in Adrianna’s company he would seem more approachable.
She asked, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I can’t hide anything from you, can I?’ he said, again surprised that she could read him so well. ‘I was just thinking about work. Sorry.’
‘Want to talk about it?’
He shook his head. ‘Work is boring. Let’s talk about you. So, Cambridge?’
‘I’m not sure. I did love it there, but maybe somewhere different would be good. I’m all for new experiences.’
He nodded and enthused as she talked about her plans, but all the while he replayed the incident with the tourists in his mind. There was nothing suspicious about either of them. The guy hadn’t spoken, but he seemed shy compared to his outgoing partner. No, it wasn’t the tourists that were bothering him, it was himself, for his inability to lower his guard and take a picture for a couple of dumb tourists without feeling exposed because they had taken him by surprise. He wondered how he had become this facsimile of a person — a jigsaw with pieces missing — and if it would ever be any different.
Adrianna continued, ‘Columbia University is very highly regarded, of course, and I absolutely adore New York. Though I’d run the risk of doing more shopping than studying.’
Victor nodded and sipped his tea, telling himself that his paranoia was excessively keen in this instance. Mossad were chasing leads in Barcelona, according to Procter. There was nothing for them to find there that would lead to Bulgaria.
‘You’re the first person I’ve told about this,’ Adrianna added with a shy smile.
Victor said, ‘I’m honoured,’ and immediately remembered saying the same words to the British woman. He’d commented on having taken their first picture in Sofia, according to the camera’s display. The woman had not responded to his remark. Not a single word or even gesture. A personable tourist, as she clearly had shown herself to be, would have replied with some kind of explanation. Maybe they had only just arrived, or it was a new memory stick in the camera. But nothing.
Victor cursed himself for not understanding sooner.
He didn’t know how, whether they’d somehow tracked him or followed Adrianna to him. But it didn’t matter. All that mattered now was that they had found him.
The Kidon were in Sofia.
The charade with the camera must have been to make a positive ID. With his longer hair, tan and beard he looked notably different from the man caught on camera a month before. They had needed to get close to make sure he was really their target. It was brazen, risky, but they hadn’t been aware Victor knew they were after him.
Procter had been wrong about Barcelona, or maybe his intel had just been out of date. Across from Victor, Adrianna continued to talk about universities and studying, completely unaware of the mortal danger they were both in.