Call After Midnight (20 page)

“What went wrong, Nick?”

He lay back against the pillows. “You know the old saying? That there are two sides to every story? Our marriage was a perfect example. If you asked Lauren what
went wrong, she'd say it was my fault. She'd say I didn't understand her needs.”

“And if I asked you?”

He shrugged. “As time passes you get a sense of perspective. I guess I'd have to say it was no one's fault, really. But I can't forget what she did.” He turned to Sarah with such a look of sadness that she could almost reach out and touch his pain. “We were married—oh, three years. She liked Cairo. She liked the embassy whirl. She was an outstanding foreign service wife. I think that's one reason she married me. She thought I could show her the world. Unfortunately my career required going to places she didn't quite consider civilized.”

“Like Cameroon?”

“That's right. I wanted that post. It would only have been for a year or two. But she refused flat out to go. Then I got offered London, which made her happy. It might have all worked out eventually. Except…” His voice trailed off. Sarah felt his arm stiffen beneath her shoulder.

“You don't have to tell me, Nick. Not if you don't want to.”

“People always say time heals all wounds. But sometimes it doesn't. You see, she got pregnant. I found out in London. She didn't tell me—the embassy doctor had to come up and slap me on the back with the news. Told me I was going to be a father. I was—hell, Sarah, for about six short hours I was so high they had to peel me off the ceiling. Then I got home. I found out she didn't want it.”

There was nothing Sarah could say to ease his pain. She could only hope that when he'd finished talking, he'd find some comfort in her arms.

“Sometimes I wonder,” he said. “I wonder what it would have looked like. Whether it would have been a boy or a girl. What color its hair would've been. I catch myself
counting the years, thinking of all the birthdays it never had. I don't have much family. I wanted that baby. I practically begged her for it. But Lauren called it an inconvenience.” He looked at Sarah with bewilderment in his eyes. “An
inconvenience
. What was I supposed to say to that?”

“There's no answer you can give.”

“No. There isn't. That's when I realized I didn't know her. We had all kinds of fights then. She flew home and… took care of the problem. She never came back. I got the divorce papers a month later. Special delivery. It's been four years now.”

“Do you ever miss her?”

“No. I was almost relieved when the papers came. I've been on my own ever since. It's easier that way. No pain. Nothing.” He touched her face and a smile formed on his lips. “Then you walked into my office. You with your funny glasses. The first day I saw you, I wasn't paying attention to your looks. But you took off those glasses and then all I saw were your eyes. That's when I wanted you.”

“I'm going to throw those old glasses away.”

“Never. I love them.”

She laughed, grateful for the kind and funny things lovers say. For the first time in her life, she almost felt beautiful.

A breeze blew in the open window, carrying with it the faint smell of exhaust from the street below. Berlin was waking up. Sounds of traffic drifted in: the honk of a horn, a bus roaring by. The night was over. It was time to make that phone call.

“Sarah? Have you thought about what happens when we find him?”

“I can't think that far ahead.”

“You still love him.”

She shook her head. “I don't know who I loved anymore.
Not Simon Dance. Maybe the man I loved never existed. He was never real.”

“But I am,” whispered Nick. “I'm real. And unlike Geoffrey Fontaine, I've got nothing to hide.”

I
S THIS WHERE
I'll find him?
The thought played over and over in Sarah's mind as they rode the bus north, past broad, clean streets, past avenues where shopkeepers were out in the early morning sunshine, sweeping the sidewalks.

A half hour earlier, they had called the number on Eve's phone bill and learned it was a flower shop. The woman on the other end had been courteous and helpful. Yes, the shop was easy to find. It was several miles north of the Ku-damm. The bus stop was only a block away.

It was not a good part of town. Sarah watched as the broad streets gave way to alleys littered with glass and a neighborhood of squat, shabby houses. Here, children played in the streets, and old men sat dully on their porch steps. Was Geoffrey hiding in the back room of one of these houses? Was he waiting for her in the basement of a flower shop?

At a street corner, they stepped off the bus. A block away they found the address. The shop was small, with dirty windows. On the sidewalk just outside sat plastic buckets overflowing with roses. A tiny brass bell tinkled as they opened the door.

The smell of flowers overwhelmed them. Inside, a plump woman of about fifty smiled at them across a counter piled high with satin ribbons and roses and baby's breath. She was making bouquets. For a few seconds, her
gaze lingered on Sarah, then it settled on Nick.
“Guten tag,”
she said.

Nick nodded.
“Guten tag.”
Casually he wandered about the shop, noting the refrigerators with their sweating glass doors and the shelves of vases and china figurines and plastic flowers. Near the door was a funeral wreath, packed in cellophane and ready for delivery. The shop woman clipped the thorns from the roses and began to wind wire ribbon around the stems. It was a bride's bouquet. She hummed as she worked, not at all perturbed by the silence of her two visitors. At last she put the bouquet down and her eyes met Sarah's.

“Ja?”
she asked softly.

Sarah pulled out Geoffrey's picture and placed it on the counter. The woman stared at it but said nothing.

Nodding at the photograph, Nick asked her a question in German. She shook her head. “Geoffrey Fontaine,” he said. The woman didn't react. “Simon Dance,” he said. Again the woman only stared at him blankly.

“But you must know him!” Sarah blurted. “He's my husband—I have to find him.”

“Sarah, let me—”

“He's waiting for me. If you know where he is, call him. Tell him I'm here!”

“Sarah, she doesn't understand you.”

“She has to understand! Nick, ask her about Eve. Maybe she knows Eve.”

At Nick's questions the woman shrugged again. She knew nothing at all about Geoffrey. Or if she did know, she wasn't talking.

To have all their hopes end like this! After traveling halfway across Europe, they had reached nothing but a
dead end. Sick with disappointment, Sarah slipped the picture back into her purse. The German woman calmly turned her attention to wrapping the bouquets in green tissue paper.

Sarah turned miserably to Nick. “What do we do now?”

He was staring off in frustration at the funeral wreath. “I don't know,” he muttered. “I just don't know.”

The shop woman began tearing off sheets of tissue paper. The soft ripping noise made Sarah shudder.

“Why here?” she murmured. “Why would she call this place? There had to be a reason.”

Sarah wandered to the refrigerator and stared through the glass at the buckets of carnations and roses. The smell of flowers was beginning to sicken her. It reminded her too vividly of a painful day on a cemetery hilltop just two weeks ago. “Please, Nick,” she said quietly. “Let's leave.”

Nick dipped his head at the shop woman.
“Danke schön.”

The woman smiled and beckoned to Sarah. Puzzled, Sarah went to the counter. The woman held out a single rose with a tissue-wrapped stem and murmured,
“Auf wiedersehen.”
Then, gazing steadily, the woman gave the rose to Sarah. Their eyes met. It was only the briefest of looks, but in that instant Sarah understood its significance; something had just been passed to her. Something for her eyes only.

Nodding, she accepted the rose.
“Auf wiedersehen!”
she said. Then she turned and followed Nick out of the shop.

Outside, Sarah clutched the rose tightly in her fist. Her mind was racing; the stem felt like a hot poker. It took all her willpower not to tear away the tissue paper and read
the message she knew was written inside. But something about the woman's eyes had conveyed another message, a warning. A look that said,
You are in danger, from someone nearby.

But the only person nearby was Nick.

Nick, the man she trusted, the man she loved.

Since Geoffrey's disappearance, Nick had been her friend, her protector. Whenever she'd needed him, he'd been there. Had it been mere coincidence? Or had it all been planned? If so, it had worked brilliantly. They had picked the right man for the job. They had known she'd be frightened and lonely, that she'd be desperate for a friend, for someone to trust. Then, like magic, Nick had appeared in London. Since then he'd been with her almost twenty-four hours a day. Why?

She didn't want to believe it, but the answer was staring her right in the face. Surveillance.

No, she couldn't be sure. And she loved him.

But the woman's look of warning had burned into her memory; she couldn't forget it.

The bus ride seemed to take forever. All the way back, Nick's hand rested on her knee. His touch burned like a brand into her skin. She wanted to meet his eyes, but she was afraid of what she might see. Afraid that he would read her fear.

As soon as they reached the
pension
, she fled into the bathroom at the end of the hall and bolted the door. With shaking hands she peeled the tissue paper from the rose's stem. Beneath the naked lightbulb by the sink, she read the message. It was in English and had been scrawled hurriedly in pencil.

Potsdamer Platz, one o'clock tomorrow.

Trust no one.

She stared at the last three words.
Trust no one.
Its meaning was unmistakable. She had been careless. She could afford to make no more mistakes. Geoffrey's life depended on her.

Savagely she ripped the note into a dozen pieces and flushed it down the toilet. Then she headed back to the room, to Nick.

She couldn't leave him yet. First she had to be certain. She loved Nick O'Hara, and in her heart she knew he would never hurt her. But she had to know: for whom was he working?

Tomorrow, in Potsdamer Platz, she'd find her answers.

* * *

“W
E WERE BEGINNING
to think you wouldn't make it,” said Nick.

Wes Corrigan looked uneasy as he took a chair across from Nick and Sarah. “So was I,” he muttered, glancing over his shoulder.

“Trouble?” said Nick.

“I'm not sure. That's what bothers me. It's like one of those old horror flicks. You're never sure when the monster's going to leap at you.” He slouched down, in a vain attempt to hide in the chair's depths.

In search of a discreet meeting place, they had come to this dark café. Their table was dimly lighted by a single candle; around them were people who spoke in whispers, people who purposefully minded their own business. No one looked twice at the two men and a woman sitting at the corner table.

Almost by instinct, Sarah's eyes searched the room for a back entrance. If things went wrong, she'd need an easy
escape. The door was clearly marked, but it would require a dash across the room. She picked out her route through the tables and chairs. Three seconds, that's all it should take. If it came to that, she'd be on her own. She could no longer count on Nick.

It struck her then how much her existence had changed. A few weeks ago, she'd been an ordinary woman, living an ordinary life. Now she was scouting out escape routes.

“I tell you, Nick,” said Wes, after he'd ordered a beer. “This whole thing has got me spooked.”

“What's happened?”

“Well, to begin with, you were right. I'm being watched. Not long after you left last night, a van showed up across the street from my house. It's been there ever since. I had to sneak out the back door, through the alley. I'm not used to this kind of life. Makes me nervous.”

“Have you got anything for us?”

Wes looked around again, then lowered his voice. “First of all, I went back to review my file on Geoffrey Fontaine's death. When I called you a few weeks ago, I had all the data in front of me. The pathology report, the police report. I had a whole file of notes, the photocopy of his passport…”

“And?”

“They're missing.” He glanced at Sarah. “Everything. It's
all
gone. Not just my file. It's disappeared from the computer.”

“What
have
you got, then?”

“On Geoffrey Fontaine? Nothing. It's as if I never filed that report.”

“They can't erase a man's existence,” Sarah pointed out.

Wes shrugged. “Someone's trying to. I can't be sure
who did it. We've got a big staff in our mission. It could have been any of a dozen.”

They stopped talking as the waitress served their suppers: warm, crusty bread; escargots sizzling in garlic and butter; wedges of Gouda cheese.

“What about Magus?” asked Nick.

Wes dabbed a drop of butter from his chin. “I was getting to that. Okay, after I found out Geoffrey Fontaine had been dropped from the records, I hunted around for info on Magus. Except for the obvious biblical references, there's nothing under that name.”

“Doesn't surprise me,” said Nick.

“I'm not cleared for the top secret stuff. And I think this Magus fellow falls into that category.”

“So we're left with nothing,” said Sarah.

“Not exactly.”

Nick frowned. “What did you find?”

Wes reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope, which he tossed on the table. “I found Simon Dance.”