Europe in Winter (The Fractured Europe Sequence)(25)

“It wasn’t us. Lewis would have multiple orgasms if he ever got his hands on a map like that. When was this?”

“Quite a while ago. Ten, maybe fifteen years.”

“No,” she said. “Not us. We’ve only been running for six years or so. And we weren’t that serious.” And she scowled to realise that she was still saying we. As if she was ever going to do anything but knock Lewis unconscious if she ever saw him again.

“Well, it seems to be fairly serious to me,” Rudi said. “For Herr Berg, anyway. Although to be fair, we don’t know what he was being arrested for, or whether he was released after questioning. For all we know, he might have failed to pay maintenance to his ex-wife. I presume you had no fallback procedure, no way of contacting him directly?”

Gwen took a drink of coffee. “Lewis,” she said. “I didn’t even know this bloke’s name.”

“And you have no idea what brought Berg into contact with your friend Lewis?”

Gwen shook her head. “What was he supposed to be giving you?”

Rudi got up from the table and started to gather up the breakfast things and carry them over to the kitchen area. “If it’s something likely to bring you into conflict with the authorities, it’s best you don’t know,” he said.

“Fucksake,” Gwen muttered. “You and Lewis.”

“So far, you haven’t done anything wrong,” Rudi said, bending over to put the breakfast plates into the little dishwasher. “From what you told me, Berg probably didn’t know your name or even have a description by which to identify you.”

“The police were at the hotel.”

“Yes.” He closed the dishwasher and stood up awkwardly. His leg was aching again. “Yes, that’s interesting.”

“You think Lewis grassed me up.”

Rudi limped back to the table and sat down. “He knew when you were coming and where you were staying. As did whoever left the contact procedure at the hotel for you.” He shrugged. “I have no idea. Things go wrong all the time; it might be no more suspicious than that.”

Gwen scowled and drained her coffee. “So what do we do now?”

“The first thing we have to do is make sure you’re safe.”

“And safely out of the way.”

Rudi tipped his head to one side and smiled.

“According to you I can’t go back home. My job will be gone and I’ll probably be arrested the moment I set foot in the office, if not before. My life’s in ruins; I’m not going to let you just... file me somewhere. I want to know what’s going on.”

Rudi crossed his arms, came to a decision. “Herr Berg gave me to understand that he had information relating to Les Coureurs des Bois, something they were doing here in Luxembourg.”

“It’s not the same thing, then,” Gwen said. “Lewis isn’t interested in the Coureurs.”

“That’s been puzzling me,” Rudi admitted. “What are the chances that Herr Berg would have two separate pieces of information to sell to two different people on the same day?”

“I have no idea,” said Gwen, taking the coffeepot from its coaster in the middle of the table and refilling her cup. “Right about now I’m prepared to believe anything.”

Rudi lit a cigar and frowned.

“Who is this Berg, anyway?” Gwen asked.

“He works for the Defence Ministry,” Rudi said. “I looked him up. He’s in Procurement.”

Gwen thought about it. “Have you tried to find out what the Defence Ministry has been procuring recently?”

Rudi stared at her through a cloud of cigar smoke.





“I’M NOT A spy,” Rudi said. “I don’t do espionage.”

“It sounds like exactly what you do,” Gwen told him.

“It’s not the same.”

Gwen shrugged. They were sitting in a little café, improbably named the Bouffy Hutch, near the centre of the city. The place was packed; mainly, it appeared, with people sheltering from the snow, which was still blowing past the windows like the carriages of a steam locomotive. The air inside was warm and smelled of coffee and food and damp clothing.

“What I mean is that it’s not second nature for me,” Rudi grumbled. “I have to think about it.” He sighed. “I’m getting sloppy.”

Gwen looked at the windows. “Is it ever going to sodding stop?” They had spent the past two days at the flat, digging stuff up from the internet and making phone calls, and the snow had not ceased once. In some places it was over a metre deep.

“Better pray it keeps up,” Rudi told her, sipping his coffee. “There’s nothing the police hate more than searching for a fugitive in a blizzard.”

Gwen had found herself quite surprised by how easily she had taken to being a fugitive. The trick, it seemed, was simply not to act like one. So long as you looked as if you belonged somewhere and knew what you were doing, nobody noticed you. Stomping through the snow bundled up in cold-weather clothing, fur-lined hood pulled up over her head, she was perfectly anonymous. Sitting here, she was just another face in the crowd.

“Here’s our man,” Rudi said, and Gwen looked up to see a short, stout figure making its way through the café towards them, annoying diners on either side by shaking flakes of snow off its sleeves. Rudi waved – three friends meeting each other for lunch – and the figure came over, pulled up a chair, and sat down.