Gemini. Mark Burnell

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 pre-paid, 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 hand-luggage, 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 lie 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?’

       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 СКАЧАТЬ