33

      The Fleming owned an hotel not far from Ostend. The car turned into a covered alley that led to a cobbled courtyard. A couple of hens squawked as we parked and a dog howled. ‘It’s difficult,’ said the man, ‘to do anything clandestine around here.’

      He was a small broad man with a sallow skin that would always look dirty no matter what he did to it. The bridge of his nose was large and formed a straight line with his forehead, like the nose metal of a medieval helmet. His mouth was small and he held his lips tight to conceal his bad teeth. Around his mouth were scars of the sort that you get when thrown through a windscreen. He smiled to show me it was a joke rather than an apology, and the scars made a pattern around his mouth like a tightened hairnet.

      The door from the side entrance of the hotel opened and a woman in a black dress and white apron stared at us.

      ‘They have come,’ said the man.

      ‘So I see,’ she said. ‘No luggage?’

      ‘No luggage,’ said the man. She seemed to need some explanation, as though we were a man and girl trying to book a double room.

      ‘They need to rest, ma jolie môme,’ said the man. She was no one’s pretty child, but the compliment appeased her for a moment.

      ‘Room four,’ she said.

      ‘The police have been?’

      ‘Yes,’ she said.

      ‘They won’t be back until night,’ said the man to us. ‘Perhaps not then even. They check the book. It’s for the taxes more than to find criminals.’

      ‘Don’t use all the hot water,’ said the woman. We followed her through the yellow peeling side door into the hotel entrance hall. There was a counter made of carelessly painted hardboard and a rack with eight keys hanging from it. The lino had the large square pattern that’s supposed to look like inlaid marble; it curled at the edges and something hot had indented a perfect circle near the door.

      ‘Name?’ said the woman grimly as though she was about to enter us in the register.

      ‘Don’t ask,’ said the man. ‘And they won’t ask our name.’ He smiled as though he had made a joke and looked anxiously at his wife, hoping that she would join in. She shrugged and reached behind her for the key. She put it down on the counter very gently so she could not be accused of anger.

      ‘They’ll need two keys, Sybil.’

      She scowled at him. ‘They’ll pay for the rooms,’ he said.

      ‘We’ll pay,’ I said. Outside the rain began. It bombarded the window and rattled the door as though anxious to get in.

      She slammed the second key down upon the counter. ‘You should have taken it and dumped it,’ said the woman angrily. ‘Rik could have driven these two back here.’

      ‘This is the important stage,’ said the man.

      ‘You lazy pig,’ said the woman. ‘If the alarm is out for the car and Rik gets stopped driving it, then we’ll see which is the important stage.’

      The man didn’t answer, nor did he look at me. He picked up the keys and led the way up the creaky staircase. ‘Mind the handrail,’ he said. ‘It’s not fixed properly yet.’

      ‘Nothing is,’ called the woman after us. ‘The whole place is only half-built.’

      He showed us into our rooms. They were cramped and rather sad, shining with yellow plastic and smelling of quick-drying paint. Through the wall I heard Kuang swish back the curtain, put his jacket on a hanger and hang it up. There was the sudden chug-chug of the water pipe as he filled the wash-basin. The man was still behind me, hanging on as if waiting for something. I put my finger to my eye and then pointed towards Kuang’s room; the man nodded. ‘I’ll have the car ready by twenty-two hundred hours. Ostend isn’t far from here.’

      ‘Good,’ I said. I hoped he would go but he stayed there.

      ‘We used to live in Ostend,’ he said. ‘My wife would like to go back there. There was life there. The country is too quiet for her.’ He fiddled with the broken bolt on the door. It had been painted over but not repaired. He held the pieces together, then let them swing apart.

      I stared out of the window; it faced south-west, the way we had come. The rain continued and there were puddles in the roadway and the fields were muddy and windswept. Sudden gusts had knocked over the pots of flowers under the crucifix and the water running down the gutters was bright red with the soil it carried from somewhere out of sight.

      ‘I couldn’t let the boy bring you,’ the man said. ‘I’m conducting you. I couldn’t let someone else do that, not even family.’ He rubbed his face hard as if he hoped to stimulate his thought. ‘The other was less important to the success of the job. This part is vital.’ He looked out of the window. ‘We needed this rain,’ he said, anxious to have my agreement.

      ‘You did right,’ I said.

      He nodded obsequiously, as if I’d given him a ten-pound tip, then smiled and backed towards the door. ‘I know I did,’ he said.