A Few Words for the Dead by Guy Adams

Author:Guy Adams [Adams, Guy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy, mystery, SF
ISBN: 9781448175543
Google: CgB3oAEACAAJ
Amazon: B00RKX0SL6
Barnesnoble: B00RKX0SL6
Publisher: Ebury Digital
Published: 2015-03-07T07:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-THREE

I decided there was little I could do but go back to Alexandra’s flat. I needed to think, to try and decide what my next step should be. I could just return to West Berlin, but that would be giving up and what would I have achieved? I’d seen Robie, yes, and there was no evidence to support his being a traitor. But there was little evidence of anything else either. To my un-blinkered eyes, it seemed clear that something was possessing people, making them act against their wishes. The Russian soldier, Grauber, my would-be postman assassin. Finally, of course, poor Alexandra, throwing herself to her death even though she had no idea why. But there was no way any of my superiors were going to accept a report about that.

Perhaps they were right. Sometimes, accepting the preternatural is no help at all. Yes, I could accept the notion of these people being possessed but by what and why? Expressing an opinion about it at this stage would get me nowhere – I just didn’t know enough.

What could I tell them about Robie? That he was on the run, afraid for his life. He clearly believed that whatever it was that was possessing people had him in its sights. It was all nonsense. It was as insubstantial as air. They would send me back to England in disgrace, and Robie would be no better off than he had been before I came.

I had to stay, I had to find out more. I had to find him. Nothing else would do.

I stopped off to buy a change of clothes. When the shop assistant seemed suspicious, I spun him a tale about the border control having confiscated my bag for no reason. That seemed to work: he shook his head sadly as if it was the most common thing in the world. ‘They are a disgrace sometimes,’ he said, clearly deciding that, as a foreigner – and one who had not had enough clout with the authorities to even maintain ownership of a spare shirt – I was unlikely to cause trouble over him expressing such opinions. ‘They do as they please. They take your money, your belongings. I think they share it between themselves.’

‘Well, I don’t imagine they’ll be fighting over my socks,’ I told him. ‘They were nothing special.’

He laughed and bagged up my purchases. On the spur of the moment, I dashed away again to look at their winter coats, adding a padded parka and a pair of gloves to my order.

‘More snow soon,’ he said, by way of endorsing my decision. ‘They say it’s going to get much colder in the next couple of days.’

‘I don’t suppose you sell brandy as well?’ I joked.

He laughed. I was doing a marvellous job of making friends with him. ‘Nature’s thermal vest, eh?’ he suggested.

I took my bags and walked the rest of the way to Alexandra’s flat. At least she had given me a spare set of keys. Without Engel around to negotiate locked doors, I would have been stuck out in the cold without them.

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