The Trinity Six - Charles Cumming [128]
By half-past twelve Gaddis had made his way downstairs. Viki complimented him on his appearance and helped to pack his dirty clothes in the bag given to him by Eva. Miklós advised him to change his jacket – ‘in case a witness from the Kleines Café has described it to the police’ – and in its place provided a long black overcoat which was slightly tight at the shoulders. Gaddis found a tweed cap in the pocket, but did not want to put it on, arguing that it would draw unnecessary attention to him at the airport.
‘You are probably correct,’ Miklós replied, rolling the first jacket into a ball and stuffing it into the bag. ‘You look good anyway, Mr Sam. You look normal.’
They went into a sitting room cluttered with books and lamps. Viki did not follow them. There was a chess board on a low coffee table in the centre of the room, the black king toppled over. Beside the board, resting on a copy of the Economist, was a battered British passport and 40,000 Hungarian florints, the equivalent of about £200. Miklós handed them to Gaddis.
The passport seemed a perfect fake. There were stamps from Hong Kong, a stamp from JFK, even an exact copy of the photograph which appeared in Gaddis’s regular passport, taken eight years earlier. How had Tanya acted so quickly? Where the hell had the passport been printed? The British Embassy in Budapest must have been involved. He flicked through the watermarked pages and looked up at Miklós.
‘Astonishing,’ he said.
‘I have seen better.’
The Hungarian now produced a mobile phone from his pocket and handed it across the chess board. A number by which he could reach Miklós was listed under the name ‘Mike’. Gaddis knew now that the hard part was to come. The long journey home was ahead of him.
‘So.’ Miklós had also sensed the change in mood. ‘You now have what you need. I suggest we make our way downstairs to the car.’ Viki appeared in the doorway of the sitting room and came towards Gaddis, kissing him on both cheeks. He assumed that she had been listening all the time.
‘Good luck,’ she whispered, the smell of her skin like a strange memory of Holly. ‘Miklós will take good care of you.’
‘Thank you for all your kindness,’ he told her, and they stepped outside into the corridor.
Miklós’s car was still parked outside the entrance to the apartment building, close to the pile of wood. A tram chimed past, almost knocking over a stooped, elderly lady pulling a shopping basket across the street. Gaddis tried to catch Miklós’s eye but saw that his attitude was now altogether more serious. They placed his bag in the boot, stepped into the car and fastened the seatbelts.
It was a measure of the extent to which Gaddis trusted the Hungarian that he had not checked the contents of his bag before zipping it up. Had he done so, he would have discovered that Viki had placed a small package inside it, wedged between his jacket and dirty clothes.
It had been decided that Dr Sam Gaddis was going to act as a courier.
Chapter 48
‘Listen carefully.’ Miklós had started the engine and was pulling out into traffic. ‘We drive to the airport. You are booked on the 15.30 easyJet to London Gatwick. According to the computer in my house, the plane is on time. We can check this for certain when we arrive at Ferihegy. If there is a problem, we just sit together in a café and make a conversation. OK? You have your passport in the coat?’
Gaddis