The Trinity Six - Charles Cumming [76]
Out on the street, Gaddis had found the entrance. A plaque outside announced:
BENEDICT MEISNER AKUPUNKTUR HOMÖOPATHIE WIRBELSÄULEN UND GELENKTHERAPIE
It was a mystery. How did a trained medical doctor end up practising acupuncture and homeopathy in Berlin? Had Meisner been struck off? Gaddis looked at his watch and realized that he had ten minutes to kill before his appointment. It was enough time in which to call Josephine Warner.
‘He’s taking out his phone,’ Des announced.
Josephine answered the call with an enthusiasm appropriate to the circumstances.
‘Sam! Are you here?’
‘Ja,’ Gaddis replied in cod-German, immediately regretting the joke. ‘How’s your sister?’
She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Annoying the shit out of me. I’ve realized why I never come to visit.’
Gaddis smiled. ‘Then I can persuade you to abandon her for dinner tomorrow night?’
‘You definitely can.’ Josephine was already flirting with him and – who knows? – perhaps even toying with the prospect of a post-dinner nightcap on the third floor of the Tiergarten Novotel.
‘I know a place,’ Gaddis told her, because he had researched decent Berlin restaurants on the Internet and booked a table for two – just in case – at Café Jacques in Neukölln.
Before long, they had fixed a time and a place and Gaddis had hung up, ringing the bell of Meisner’s surgery. Des duly activated the bug in POLARBEAR’s mobile and, within moments, Tanya Acocella was listening to Gaddis as he introduced himself to the receptionist.
‘Guten Tag,’ he said. ‘I apologize. I don’t speak German.’
‘This is all right, sir.’
‘I have an appointment with Doctor Meisner at four o’clock.’
To Tanya’s relief, the take quality was first class; she was listening through a set of headphones and it was as if the conversation was taking place in the next room. She heard the receptionist asking Gaddis to fill out a form – ‘just some of your personal and medical information please’ – then the sigh of Gaddis slumping into an armchair, a brief crash on the bug as he reached for a pen in the inside pocket of his jacket, and a rustle of paper as he filled out the form.
Three minutes later, a telephone rang in the waiting room. The receptionist picked it up and Gaddis was invited ‘please to go through now’ to Meisner’s surgery. He offered to return the medical form, but was told to keep it with him and to ‘please to show it to the doctor when you arrive’. Tanya tried to picture Gaddis ducking through the connecting door and shaking Meisner’s hand. She was wondering what the hell he was planning to say to him.
‘So! We are both doctors!’
Meisner had a thick German accent and sounded chirpy and easygoing.
‘That’s right.’ Gaddis’s voice was flatter, more nervous. ‘Different areas of expertise, though. I don’t tend to save lives on a daily basis.’
She liked that, the flattery. Gaddis was softening him up.
‘Oh, I don’t save lives any more, Doctor. I simply relieve the pain. And what is your area of expertise?’
‘I’m an academic, at University College, London.’
‘Ah! UCL! Sit down, please, sit down.’
Another cushioned slump as Gaddis settled into a chair. Tanya heard him explain that he was a lecturer in Russian History in the Department of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies. Meisner kept saying ‘Ja, ja’ and appeared to be enormously interested in everything Gaddis was saying.
‘Really? Is that right? How fascinating. I myself lived in London some time ago.’
‘You did? Whereabouts?’
‘In the Hampstead area. I worked at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington for a number of years. Do you know it?’
‘I know it.’
This, of course, was POLARBEAR’s opportunity and Tanya wondered if he would take it. Typically, in a conversation of this type, it was better to show one’s hand earlier, rather than to build up an implicit trust which was then shattered by the truth.
‘In fact, that’s sort of the reason why I’ve come today.’
He was going for