September in the Rain by Peter Robinson

Author:Peter Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Holland House
Published: 2016-07-20T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

When you emerged from the crowd at Brussels international railway station, with a red paisley handkerchief fitted behind your ears and tied under the fall of hair at your neck, my relief was strained with fear and anxiety. The scarf had been adjusted like a cowl around your face—a face in shadow. You were wearing your blue jeans with frayed white ends and the pale green flowery smock you’d made yourself; you were carrying a grey frame rucksack through the crowd that funnelled towards the barrier, and fanned out across the station foyer. Coming clear from among them, not noticing anyone standing beside the black wood kiosk, you took a few steps further, were beginning to turn around, when a sign of recognition flashed across your face.

‘Let me help you with that bag,’ I offered.

‘No need—I’ve carried it this far,’ you said. ‘Have you found a hotel?’

Directed out into the nine o’clock dark of that September night, you turned and blankly gazed into my face. Then you strode towards the exit, leaving my hand behind.

‘I’ve booked a place over on the far side of the square. No distance at all.’

Outside Brussels station, as we headed towards the hotel, traffic came pounding over the cobbles, cars veering past at the junctions. Beyond the railway lines, backs of dilapidated housing blocks loomed up out of the night, a rare lit window against the surrounding darkness.

‘How was the ferry?’ I asked.

‘Rough. People being sick everywhere,’ you said. ‘I had the snack bar all to myself. We were late docking. There was just time to run for the last train to Brussels. It was actually moving when I got on. Count yourself lucky I’m here.’

‘Have you eaten dinner?’

‘In the restaurant car.’

The picture of a thick, white table cloth, a few scattered crumbs of fresh bread, an empty wine glass with a pale red stain, a wiped-clean plate and a railway waiter hovering to refill a coffee cup came over me like a pang of more than hunger.

‘I haven’t had a thing to eat since breakfast.’

But there was only further silence as we crossed the nighttime square. Raised railway lines were overarched by a mast-work of signals and gantries. Beneath that confusion ran tunnels with approaching car headlights that were picking us out, silhouetted in the glare interrupting urban darkness.

‘Because I ran out of money … I’m glad you came. I wouldn’t even have been able to pay the hotel bill.’

Leaving most of my holiday savings for you to change into traveller’s cheques had seemed a convenient arrangement. Why risk carrying all that money around in Holland? Why not give you that assurance I would be here in Brussels?

‘Alice not with you then?’

You must have been imagining your worst nightmare.

‘No, most likely she’s in Amsterdam …’

Dropped off by a travelling salesman near the centre of Brussels not long before midday, I had stumbled over temporary surfaces for pedestrians, along avenues congested by works in progress. They were building a new metro system. Past pleasant-smelling cafés, I headed by guesswork for the railway terminus in its enormous square.

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