Читать книгу Chameleon - Mark Burnell - Страница 10

You tell yourself it can’t be true. For once, you’re honest with yourself but your first reaction is denial. It has to be a mistake. Your mistake, somebody else’s, it doesn’t really matter. Any excuse will do when you can’t face the truth about yourself.

Everybody has a talent. This is what the cliché tells us. I think it depends on what you regard as a talent. When the lowest common denominator determines the threshold for that talent, almost anything can count; having a nice smile, being a good liar, not succumbing to obesity. Personally, though, I reject the idea that everybody has a gift. It’s rather like saying ‘art is for the people’. It isn’t. It’s for those who can appreciate it and understand it. It’s elitist. Just like talent.

Most people have no particular ability. Mediocrity is the only quality they have in abundance. I should know. For a long time, I was one of them. But that was before I discovered that there was an alternative me, that there was another world where I could rise above the rest and excel.

It’s one thing to discover you’re exceptional. It’s quite another to recognize that what makes you exceptional is unacceptable. What do you do when you finally see who you really are – what you really are – and it’s everything society rejects? You tell yourself it can’t be true. That’s what you do, that’s the first thing. And maybe it’s what you continue to do. But not me. I’d already lied to myself for long enough. When the moment came, I stopped pretending I was someone else and chose to be the real me instead. I chose to be honest.

Brutally honest.

‘How are you, Stephanie?’

Slowly, he turned round, his face emerging from her memory; ruddy skin stretched tightly across prominent bones, aquamarine eyes, that white hair. He was wearing a cream suit, a dark blue shirt open at the throat, a pair of polished black slip-ons.

‘I heard the rumours, of course. That Petra Reuter was back. Naturally, I didn’t believe them. But when it turned out that there was some substance to them, I assumed that someone had hijacked her identity in order to protect their own identity. Just as you once did.’ He squinted at her, perplexed, offended. ‘It never occurred to me that it might actually be you, the real Petra Reuter.’

Alexander was a man who believed mistakes were made by other people. That was why he was staring at her so intensely. He was looking for an answer.

‘I was sure that once you vanished, I would never hear of you again, let alone see you. But for more than two years, you were Petra. The question is, why?’

Stephanie said nothing.

‘And then you stopped. About eighteen months ago, wasn’t it? No reason, no warning. Again, the question is, why?’

Alexander. A man with no first name. A man she’d spent four years trying to forget.

‘What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?’ He took a packet of Rothmans out of his jacket pocket. ‘How unlike you.’

Stephanie couldn’t help herself. ‘Fuck off.’

She’d wanted to stay silent. Now, Alexander had his reaction. ‘That’s more like it.’

She jabbed the gun against the bridge of his nose. ‘Get out.’

‘Are you familiar with the phrase “act in haste, repent at leisure”?’

‘Are you familiar with the phrase “I’m going to count to three”?’

He didn’t even blink.

‘You rented this property through the Braun-Stahl agency in Munich. You bought your Peugeot from Yves Monteanu, a dental technician from St Raphael. Did you know that his father was a Romanian dissident? He used to publish an underground pamphlet in Bucharest each month. All through the seventies and into the eighties. A brave but foolish –’

‘One.’

‘No, I don’t suppose you did,’ Alexander concluded. ‘But that would be because you didn’t do as much research as we did. You know what we’re like, though, how thorough we are. For instance, I know that you rarely stray further than Entrecasteaux or Salernes. I know you have a checking account with Crédit Lyonnais that receives fifty thousand francs a month. Which seems a lot, considering the life you’re leading. Each month, it’s from a different source that vanishes as soon as the transaction’s complete. A neat trick – one day, you’ll have to explain it to me. I also know that you’re having a relationship with Laurent Masson, a car mechanic from Marseille. I assume you know that Masson has an ex-wife …’

‘Two.’

‘… but I wonder whether he’s told you about his criminal record.’ Stephanie was betrayed by her expression. ‘I didn’t think so.’ Alexander took his time, making a play out of plucking a cigarette from the packet. He tapped it on the lid. ‘He’s a car thief. Three convictions to his name. Last time out, he got four months inside. That was when his wife decided she’d had enough. She moved out. Took everything with her; furniture, carpets, curtains, the lot. You can imagine his surprise on the day of his release when he got back home. Mind you, it must have made it easier just to walk away … there being nothing to walk away from.’

Stephanie increased the pressure of metal on skin.

Alexander met her stare fully. ‘Three?’

There was a moment where she could have done it. In her mind, there was nothing but static. It was fifty-fifty. She felt that Alexander sensed it too, yet he hadn’t backed down.

She eased the safety on. ‘What are you doing here?’

When she pulled the gun away, it left a pale, circular indentation over the bridge of his nose.

‘I guess Masson thought he’d come to a quiet little town like Salernes – or Entrecasteaux, for that matter – where nobody’d bother him. Where he could start to build a new life for himself. Just like you. Right?’

There was a briefcase on the kitchen table. He opened it and produced an A4-sized manila envelope, which he handed to her.

‘Take a look.’

Inside, there were about twenty photographs, half of them in black-and-white. The first was of a school playground, five girls in uniform, aged seven or eight. They were playing, laughing. From the grain of the print, Stephanie could tell that the photographer had used a zoom lens. For a few moments, the significance of the shot wasn’t apparent. But then she saw.

It was the hair that fooled her. Brown and thick, it was almost waist-length. Four years ago, it had been cropped short. She was tall, too, taller than the girls around her. As a four-year-old, she’d been small for her age. Now, she’d caught up with her school friends and surged ahead. The facial features began to chime; Christopher’s nose, Jane’s eyes. The girl at the centre of the photograph was Polly, her niece.

‘I don’t believe you’ve ever seen Philip, have you? The last time you saw your sister-in-law she was pregnant with him. We were standing on the road overlooking Falstone Cemetery. Your family were burying you after your fatal car crash. Remember?’

Stephanie ignored the barb. There were five photographs taken on a beach. Bamburgh, perhaps, or maybe Seahouses. Those were the beaches Stephanie’s parents had taken them to as children. They’d remained popular with Christopher and Jane and their children. She saw James and Polly running through ankle-deep surf, Christopher with his trousers rolled up to the knee, Philip on his shoulders, tiny hands in his hair. It looked like a windy day. As she remembered them, they always were. There was a golden retriever in two of the shots. She wanted to know if it was theirs but knew she couldn’t ask. The final photographs were taken at their home, overlooking Falstone; Christopher rounding up sheep in the field below the paddock, Jane captured in the bathroom window, unfastening her bra, unaware. Stephanie recognized an implied threat when she saw it.

She put the prints on the table. ‘I imagine there’s a point to this.’

‘Been to Paris recently?’

She said nothing.

‘What do you know about James Marshall?’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘How about Oleg Rogachev?’

‘No.’

Alexander finally lit his cigarette. ‘Ever heard of a man named Koba?’

‘No.’

‘Another Russian.’

‘I would never have guessed.’

‘Not even when you were Petra?’

‘No.’

‘I have a proposition for you …’

‘Not a chance.’

‘You haven’t heard it yet.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I’m not interested.’

‘You will be. So why don’t you sit down and listen?’

She remained standing.

Alexander looked bored. ‘I’m not leaving until you hear me out.’

‘Then get on with it.’

‘You have no right to expect any leniency from me, you know. You belonged to Magenta House. You still do. The last four years count for nothing. You should bear that in mind when you consider my proposition, which is this: one job in two or three parts –’

‘No.’

Alexander continued as though he hadn’t heard her. ‘Afterwards … well, you’ll be free. You won’t have to see me again. A pleasure for both of us, I’m sure.’

‘No.’

‘Stephanie …’

‘You don’t understand. I can’t work for you again.’

‘You mean, you won’t.’

‘I mean, I can’t. I’ve changed.’

‘We’ve all changed. Some of us more than others. But no one changes quite like you. Changing is what you do best, Stephanie. And once you’ve changed into Petra Reuter and taken care of business, you’ll be free to change back into who you are now. Or anyone else you might want to be.’

‘Didn’t you hear what I said? I’ll never work for you again. I’d sooner be dead.’

Alexander took a long, theatrical drag, then exhaled slowly, smoke spilling from his nostrils. ‘I don’t expect you to agree. Not here, not now. You have your pride. But when you manage to put that to one side, you’ll see that this is a good offer.’ He picked up the photographs from the table. ‘It’s Monday afternoon now. I’ll expect you at Magenta House by the end of the week.’

‘You must be out of your mind.’

His shrug was dismissive. ‘You seem to have made a good life for yourself here. Why ruin it? Why go back on the run? Which is what you’ll have to do. Think about it. You can set yourself free.’ He was about to put the photographs back into his briefcase but changed his mind. ‘I’ll leave these with you.’

‘You don’t really think you’ll see me again, do you?’

‘Were you really going to shoot me?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you didn’t.’ He headed for the terrace, then paused. On the slate worktop, next to the sink, were the drawings she’d made of the shepherd’s hut the previous afternoon. He picked one up and examined it. ‘Yours?’

‘Get out.’

He dropped the sketch back onto the pile with casual contempt. ‘You should stick to killing people, Stephanie. That’s where your real talent lies.’

‘I’m retired.’

Alexander smiled. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him do that. He said, ‘You’re twenty-seven. You’re too young to retire.’

Stephanie watched Alexander walk down the track towards the road. She hadn’t noticed a car on her return from Entrecasteaux. Perhaps he had a driver nearby. She didn’t wait for him to fade from view.

You can make a home for yourself, you can make a life for yourself, but don’t make anything for yourself that you can’t walk away from in a second.

There was no need to think. The procedure was self-activating.

She collected a paring knife from a kitchen drawer and went upstairs to her bedroom. Beneath her bed, there was an old leather suitcase with brass locks. She opened it and slit the stained fabric lining near the bottom, so that the contents would not be damaged. A German passport in the name of Franka Müller and two thousand Deutschmarks. That was enough to get her to Helsinki. There, in a safe-deposit box at the 1572 Senaatintori branch of the Merita-Nordbanken on Aleksanterinkatu, the ingredients of Franka Müller’s life awaited collection; keys to a rented bed-sit in Berlin that was paid for monthly by direct debit to a management agency, a birth certificate, a valid American Express card, a German driving licence, personal bank records. A dormant but complete identity.

She opened the cupboard to the right of the bed and stood on a chair so that she could reach the back of the top shelf. Behind an old shoe-box, there was a small black rucksack. Everything was already packed; some underwear, socks, a pair of trainers, a pair of black jeans (now probably too tight), a couple of T-shirts, a sweatshirt, a thin grey anorak with a hood. Also, a wash-bag containing a few toiletries and a medical pack that included sutures, disinfectant and painkillers.

Stephanie looked at her watch. It was only ten thirty. Traffic permitting, she’d be at Nice airport by twelve thirty. From there, one way or another, she’d make sure she was in Helsinki before the end of the day. Tomorrow, once she’d gathered the rest of Franka Müller, she would have the whole world in which to lose herself. Tomorrow, there would be no trace of Stephanie Schneider left on the planet.

Seven fifteen. Masson entered the kitchen from the terrace, as he sometimes did, and stopped. On the floor, there was smashed crockery, shattered glass, cutlery. The wooden chair that had been next to the fridge was broken. Not just a slat here or a leg there, but destroyed.

He shouted her name but got no response.

In the sitting room, books had been torn from their shelves and hurled about the room. A turquoise china vase lay in pieces in the cast-iron grate. He ran upstairs to the bedroom; untouched, she wasn’t in it. Back in the kitchen, he noticed blood for the first time. A trail of glossy drops led through the back door and vanished into the coarse grass outside. He looked up and saw her sitting beneath an olive tree, legs dangling over a stone ledge.

‘Stephanie!’

She’d been ready to leave before Alexander had reached the road. But she hadn’t. She’d hesitated. Now, she found she couldn’t remember quite why. An hour had passed. Her mind had drifted. She’d been perversely calm. Later, she’d walked among the vines, and among the lemon trees on the steep bank that rose to the east. Sometime during the afternoon, though, the psychological anaesthetic had begun to fade. First there was sorrow, then incandescent fury.

‘Your hand,’ panted Masson, as he reached her and dropped to her side, ‘what happened to your hand?’

Both hands were in her lap. The left was lacerated over the back and across the knuckles. Sharp fragments protruded from dark sticky cuts.

‘What happened?’

She had no sequential recollection of the passage from late afternoon into early evening. The black rucksack was by the front door. She couldn’t remember putting it there but she did know that Franka Müller’s passport and Deutschmarks were tucked into a side pocket.

‘Should I call the police?’

She shook her head.

He began to protest but stopped himself. ‘You need to see a doctor.’

She saw herself spinning like a dancer. A whirlwind of fury, striking out at anything, her vision blurred by tears of frustration and rage. She wasn’t sure what she’d hit but the pain had been cathartic. As she knew it would be.

They turned off the main road, Masson’s Fiat creaking over the winding track. The headlights flickered on the vines, bugs dancing in weak yellow light. Neither had spoken since leaving Salernes. There were four stitches in the back of Stephanie’s left hand. The smaller cuts and grazes had been picked clean and disinfected. She’d declined the offer of painkillers.

They entered the kitchen. Masson’s eyes were drawn to the one thing he’d missed earlier: the gun by the sink. Stephanie watched him pick up the SIG and turn it over in his hands. She saw anxiety creep across his face.

‘Is this yours?’

She could see that he desperately wanted the answer to be no. ‘Yes.’

‘What are you doing with a piece of hardware like this, Stephanie?’

‘Don’t ask.’

‘I am asking. Just like I’m asking what happened here.’

‘I can give you answers, if you want. But they’ll be lies.’

‘You owe me more than this.’

‘I don’t owe you anything,’ she snapped. ‘No commitments, remember?’

‘Don’t you think this is different?’

‘I think we all have our secrets, Laurent. Pieces of the past that are better left in the past.’ She let him consider that for a few seconds. ‘What do you think?’

He turned away from her. ‘I think I’ll start to clear up some of this mess.’

She reached out and put her good hand on his arm. ‘Not now. It can wait.’

They ate bread and cheese. Masson opened a bottle of wine. They sat at the table on the terrace listening to the chorus of cicadas. When they’d finished, he cleared away their plates and returned with coffee and a dusty bottle of Armagnac. She said she didn’t want any. He said it was medicinal, so she relented and he poured an inch into a dirty tumbler.

When she’d decided not to run, she hadn’t had a reason. It had simply been instinct. Now, she saw why. Alexander had been unarmed. Subconsciously, that fact had registered. No gun, no accomplices, no protection at all. Under the circumstances, an incredible risk. She could have killed him in a moment. He would have had no chance at all. Hindsight prompted the question: why?

Masson poured a glass for himself. ‘Look, about before. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay. But if you do, you can trust me.’

‘I know.’ She gathered her tumbler in both hands and stared at her stitches. ‘Someone came to see me today.’

‘Who?’

‘A man from my past.’

‘What did he want?’

‘A bit of my future.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

Masson avoided eye contact and made a show of picking at a thread on the seam of his trousers. ‘That gun … I mean, if you’re in some kind of trouble … if you need help, there are people I used to know who …’

‘I know.’

He looked up at her. ‘You know what?’

‘Why you’re a mechanic.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I know you like cars, Laurent. You like them a lot.’

They sat in silence for a minute before Masson spoke again. ‘Anyway, like I was saying, I know some people who –’

‘It won’t make a difference.’

‘Well, if you change your mind …’

‘Thanks.’

He lit a cigarette. ‘The people in those photographs in the kitchen. Who are they?’

Stephanie shrugged. ‘Just a family I used to know.’

The struggle lasted through Tuesday and Wednesday. She barely slept, barely ate. Sometimes she panicked, sometimes she was almost catatonic. All her arguments seemed circular; her new life was worth fighting for, worth revisiting the past for, except nothing was worth that, nothing except the chance to leave it behind permanently.

On Wednesday, she spent the whole day in the hills, beneath a fierce sun, among the jagged rocks and thorny bushes. She could run, she knew that. And perhaps she’d stay ahead of Magenta House but for how long? If she stopped, they’d find her again. She saw now that it would only be a matter of time. And even if they didn’t find her, the possibility would linger. No matter how hard she tried to pretend it hadn’t, the threat had always been there.

More than anything, she wanted to stop running. The life she’d created for herself at the farmhouse had taught her that, if nothing else. Ultimately, she didn’t know where she was destined to settle. But that didn’t matter. It was the act that was important, not the location. To abandon the dream was to let Alexander win. That had been the insurance against the risk he’d taken in approaching her unarmed. He hadn’t offered his word as a guarantee because he knew she’d reject it – there could never be trust between them – but perhaps the risk had been a gesture of good faith.

By dusk, her feet were blistered, her skin burnt, her mind scorched.

The pretence was over, the memories resurrected. That night, she couldn’t sleep. Repulsion, fear and anger kept her awake. Later, at dawn, there were moments when she almost convinced herself that it wouldn’t be too bad. It’s just one job. But she knew that wasn’t true. Eighteen months of a real life had seen to that. No amount of effort would ever reclaim the edge she’d once had. Despite everything, that made her happy because it made her human.

Magenta House. An organization that doesn’t exist, run by people who don’t exist. An ironic consequence of the modern era. In a time of greater openness, somebody still has to get into the sewer to deal with the rats.

I don’t know how many assassins Magenta House operates – four or five, I should think, perhaps six – but I do know that I was unique among them. They were simply trained in the art of assassination. I was trained for more. Operating under the alias Petra Reuter – a German student turned activist turned mercenary terrorist – I was taught to infiltrate, seduce, lie, eavesdrop, steal, kill. I learnt how to withstand pain and how to inflict it.

It’s been four years since I vanished and I’ve been running ever since, first as Petra, then as me. Even now, after more than a full year living here, I’m still on the run. Alexander’s terms represent an opportunity to stop.

On paper, it’s an easy choice. One job buys any future I want. But I’ve changed since I stopped being Petra. I think I’m becoming the person Stephanie Patrick should have been. And that’s the problem. She might be difficult and selfish – she might be a complete bitch – but she’s not an assassin. Not like Petra, who was never anything else.

I find myself thinking about people like Jean-Marc Houtens, Li Ching Xai, John Peltor, Zvonimir Vujovic, Esteban Garcia. Like Petra Reuter, they are names without faces. I wonder what they’re doing at this precise moment, wherever in the world they are. Petra’s was never a large profession. Sure, you can find a killer on a street corner in the run-down district of any city. You can even find self-styled assassins relatively easily; in the Balkans, or the Middle East, you can’t move for enthusiastic amateurs. But those of us who formed the elite numbered no more than a dozen. Our backgrounds were diverse but we were united by the quality of our manufacture.

I used to imagine meeting other members of the club. I pictured us around a table in a restaurant, trading industry secrets, putting faces to names, assessing the competition. I’d hear gossip from time to time. Usually from Stern, the information broker, who’d offer a morsel in the hope that I would pay for something juicier. For instance, I know that former US Marine John Peltor was responsible for the Kuala Lumpur car-bomb that killed the Indonesian ambassador last year. And that Li Ching Xai was the one who murdered Alfred Reed, founder of the Reed Media Group, in Mumbai in May 1999. A five-hundred-yard head shot in a stiff crosswind, according to Stern.

When I was Petra Reuter, none of the concerns of Stephanie Patrick affected me. Nor did any of the issues surrounding my profession. I didn’t worry about morality. I worried about efficiency. I didn’t worry about the target. If I was offered the contract, he or she was already dead because if I didn’t accept the work, somebody else would. When I looked through a telescopic sight, or into the eyes of the victim, I never saw a person. I never thought about the money, either; that came later. Instead, I was always thinking … would any of the others have done this better than me?

As any female in a predominantly male profession knows, you have to be better than the men just to be equal with them.

Thursday morning. Stephanie watched the sun come up from the terrace. It was chilly for a while. Later, Masson appeared, a cup of coffee in his hand, stubble on his jaw.

‘So, you’re going, then?’

‘You saw the bag?’

‘I saw what you’re leaving behind.’

‘Meaning?’

‘The clothes you’ve left in the cupboard – well, I wouldn’t take them either.’

‘They wouldn’t fit you.’

‘You’d be surprised what I can get into.’

‘The image in my mind is not a pretty one.’

He grinned, then said, ‘Look, are you sure you know what you’re doing?’

‘To be honest, not really. But I know what will happen if I don’t go and that’s something I can’t face. The last year and a bit has been really good for me but before that, well …’

‘What?’

She sighed deeply. ‘For a long time, it was a bad time.’

‘You’re not the only one,’ he said, in a tone that was sympathetic rather than confrontational.

‘I know.’

‘What did you do?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Stephanie …’

‘Just like I don’t want to know about your convictions for auto-theft.’

For a moment, he was stunned. Then he shook his head. ‘You knew?’

‘Not until the other day. But that’s the world I was in. I knew things I never wanted to know. Saw things I wish I could forget. For months, then years, I drifted from one bad hotel to another, from one country to the next, and the things I did … they were …’

She faltered and he put his hands on her shoulders. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

Looking at Masson, she felt helpless. ‘Laurent, I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘I should have said something.’

‘No. I don’t think so. We’ve had a good time, just the way it’s been.’

She couldn’t bring herself to look into his eyes. ‘True.’

‘I always knew it wouldn’t be forever with you. That was part of the attraction.’

‘Thanks very much.’

‘You know what I mean.’

She nodded. ‘I am planning on coming back, though. If I can …’

He took her right hand in his. ‘Let’s not talk about it. Let’s sit here and drink coffee in the sun. We can pretend you’re going away and that you’ll be back for the weekend. I’ll cook something special for you. We’ll make love, drink too much wine. And we’ll do the same thing the day after, the week after … and before you know it, summer will be gone and it’ll be autumn.’