What to do about Katrina, Ep. I, Act I, sc. 37
A Parisian Pursuit, Zither or no
Welcome back to Katrina! After our little Intermission. And a very welcome to those of you who haven’t encountered my serial before. If you have just joined us and don’t want to start at the beginning (my intro there, Prelude & Scene 1 there), then that Intermission will give you an idea of the story so far.
Which kind of means, you’ll be relieved to hear, I can dispense with one of my intros.
Except to add this bit, which is I’ve got another Top in Fiction medallion for you! Here it is!
Thank you to
!I really like this new medallion design, especially the sort-of-violet colour, which is one of my faves.
Ironically, Katrina’s not in this scene.
Just a little debrief and reminder on the previously on Katrina. Peter had been summoned to a little talk with the British Ambassador, in which they discussed our strange visitor (possibly) from a parallel world. He is now about to go and meet an old friend, who just so happens to have a KGB cryptonym. Meanwhile, Sean seems to have persuaded Tom that Peter may well have something to do with this Katrina conspiracy, in which case, it’s time to do a little old-fashioned espionage…
I did, after all, say I was going to up the pace a little from now on…
And here is a little vintage photograph of the Rue Saint Honore for you.
“This is ridiculous, Sean. Let’s just go back to the fucking pub.”
“Oh ye of little faith. Trust me on this one. He went in the front way, he’ll come out the front way.”
“Bollocks. He’s not stupid, Sean.”
“He has no idea we’re here, Thomas. He’ll come out the front way.”
“It’s fucking cold.”
“Not for much longer. Besides. Don’t try and tell me you’re not curious.”
“We did that convo in the pub, Sean. I’m not curious.”
“So why are you lurking in that fucking doorway, Thomas?”
“I could ask the same about you. And stop calling me Thomas. It’s Tom.”
“Whatever. Anyhow, if you quit the Service you’ll regret it. So you need the experience. Likewise besides, you’ll never get seduced by sexy French spies in civilian life, eh?”
“Audrey is not a spy, Sean.”
“Course she’s a fucking spy, Tom. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you’re not an attractive guy. Or that she’s only interested in you for the information. Surely I’m not. But I’m just saying, you know.”
“Maybe you’re the spy, Sean. And you’re only friends with me so you can get the information. Which I will never give you, by the way.”
“Fuck that, Thomas. You’re a great guy and I love you madly.”
“I do hope there’s no one else listening on this frequency, Sean, or you’ll be in real trouble.”
Perhaps a feminine chuckle was heard over that particular frequency. But neither of them would’ve heard it.
“Talking of homo shit, Thomas. Don’t tell me you don’t appreciate the attentions of the lovely Audrey.”
“I’m not in the mood to talk about my unseemly lovelife, Sean. As far as Audrey is concerned, she’d rather spend the evening with her parents, and so for some reason she hasn’t told me, in the typical manner of women, I suddenly find myself in the doghouse.”
“Excellent. You can get to work on Katrina.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Sean. Do you realise how fucking mad that girl is? How fucking infuriating?”
“Equally excellent. Pass her over to yours truly and I’m sure our little Irish intelligence agency, which is, may I add, heinously underappreciated, will be exceedingly interested in her. Especially after what I discovered earlier.”
“What did you discover earlier, Sean?”
“Ah. Well, you don’t get to hear about that. It’s classified. As they say. Although, and I don’t say this lightly, Thomas, if you don’t keep lurking in that doorway and do as I say once our man from the Circus makes his appearance then, well, let’s just say you’ll never get to know about her mother.”
“What about her mother?”
“Ah ah, Thomas. What did I just say? We’re going to follow Peter when he finally emerges, and then once we find out which ‘old friend’ he intends on meeting, we’ll go back to the pub, and we’ll conspire together, you and I. What do you say to that?”
Hesitation.
Temptation.
Too much hesitation. Tom wasn’t entirely sure, yet, after all, about quitting. If he was, clearly, he would’ve done it by now, wouldn’t he?
“In our business, Thomas, a silent answer contains as much information as a rich one.”
“I’m cold, Sean. I’d like to go back to the fucking –”
“What? What?”
“He’s coming out. Hold on.”
“Hah! Told you! Did I not tell you?! Sure I did! Oh ye of little faith.”
“Shut up, Sean. He’s making a call. Hold on…”
“What’s his expression?” Sean suddenly does professional.
“He looks agitated.”
“Not surprised. Unexpected summons to the Ambassador when he wants to meet a contact. Any spy would feel the same.”
“He’s hung up.”
“Well, there you go. Telling his contact he’s on his way. Right, time to focus, Thomas. Describe the situation.”
“Ok. So, he’s turned left and heading your way. Your side of the road. Brisk pace. You’d best start.”
“Only when he glances to the other side.”
“Go now.”
“Thank you very much my friend. Keep up on your side, no closer than thirty metres behind.”
“What’s that in feet?”
“Fuck the Royale wi’ cheese joke, Thomas. We agreed on the metric system. I’ll follow from in front. Just match his pace and look nonchalant.”
“What does that mean, nonchalant?”
“Classic spy jargon, Thomas. Learned it from me dad. He learned it from his dad. And so on.”
“Your ancestors didn’t have an intelligence agency, Sean.”
“Oh, right. The famous British arrogance coming across now, is it? Maybe you should’ve joined MI6, Thomas? Like your pop?”
“Turn to your left, Sean.”
“Uh?”
“I’m anticipating. Take the left turn.”
Sean takes the side alley. Walks swiftly.
After a few moments, “Yes! He’s turning that way himself.”
“Very well done, Thomas! I’m impressed!”
“Quiet. You’re not on the Rue Saint Honore anymore.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake Thomas. Don’t give away our fucking location on this frequency!”
“Stop being paranoid, Sean. It’s an Irish frequency. No one gives a shit about the Irish.”
“You’re enjoying this, eh? Excellent. Maybe you don’t want to quit after all. I still bagsie Audrey, though.”
“She’s not a spy, Sean.”
“Whatever you say, my friend.”
“If she’s a spy, Sean, how come she put me in the doghouse?”
“Oh dearie dearie me, Thomas. You have so much to learn about women.”
“Shush. He’s increasing his pace. I’m crossing the road.”
“Copy that. There’s a side road that curves up to the right in about ten metres. What does your instinct say? Quick.”
“Take it.”
“Copy that.”
Tom, uncharacteristically, suddenly finds his mind becoming sharp. Perhaps it’s like the cold air surrounding him. Perhaps Audrey leaving him in the lurch. Perhaps a weird girl from a parallel world. An emptiness needing to be replenished. Whatever. His keen blue eyes focus and his warm heart breathes. Focus forwards. Peter is determined.
This is your chance to get your own back, Thomas.
Stop thinking you’re not cut out for this line of work.
I don’t need your thoughts in my head right now, Dad.
Oh yes you do, Tom. Oh yes you do.
Sigh.
He can feel his father. Smiling. But is it a smirk, or is it pride?
Just focus.
Because this is far more important than you can possibly imagine, Thomas. If you never try, you’ll never know…
“Left or right, Thomas?”
“Always go left.”
“Copy that.”
Sean nonchalantly takes the left turn. Still thirty metres ahead of Peter. These hooded streetlamps cast only halos.
It’s maybe half a kilometre to a run of subtle cafés defying these lockdowns. A little backhanders to La Gendarmerie is all she wrote.
Humans are defiant.
You will never win.
Peter turns to the right.
“Fuck.”
“What?”
“He’s gone right.”
“Ok, don’t panic, Thomas. I’ve got Google Maps. And you’ve got me little red dot. I can loop around to the right not far up ahead. I’ll do a little run and a runaround. Not a problem.”
Sean runs.
“He’ll notice you.”
“Oh ye of little faith.”
Thomas follows to the right. He can see Sean’s little red dot overlayed on his maps screen.
And then he glances up.
“What the fuck!”
“What?”
Sean halts. Abrupt.
“The fucking lights have gone out.”
“What?”
More of a whisper. Tom halts. “The fucking lights have gone out, Sean.”
“Not here they haven’t. Maybe it’s just a momentary coup, you know. It happens.”
“No, Sean. It’s only the streetlamps. All of them.”
“Ok. Keep cool. Can you see him.”
Tom squints. Shakes his head.
“Tom?”
“No. I’ve lost him. This is some weird fucking shit, Sean.”
“You mean like American Werewolf in London? You wanna go back to the pub?”
“It’s your round, right?”
“I believe so. Whatever you say. I’m continuing to loop round. Wait for your eyes to adjust, then keep walking. And stop being freaked out.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“Shit like this, Thomas, happens all the time in this line of work. Just walk. Trust me on this one, my friend.”
Tom inhales that cold air deeply. Peter isn’t there anymore.
What would his dad do?
Go home to Mum, that’s what he’d do. Not risk it. He has an unborn son, remember? Tom is so much more important than following some stupid spy who no one’s going to give a fuck about in ten years’ time.
Even if that spy is the key to the entire Bavarian child abuse network.
You are so much more important than all this, Tom. I love you. We miss you.
Come home, Tom. Come home.
Tom breathes.
There is an ancient calmness, sometimes, that we all feel when we’re alone at night. When we are the watchers. When we are alone.
Someone must watch, they say. There’s always some predator out there, if you go deeper into that forest. Beyond the clearing we carved out for our summer home. A safe place where we can love and tell stories and sing and watch over our children playing and teach them everything they’ll ever need to know.
Watch over them.
Because someone must watch, they say. Always. Someone must watch.
“IHRE PAPIERE BITTE!”
Tom leaps out of his fucking skin.
“IHRE PAPIERE BITTE MEIN HERR!”
His heart gets back into beat. Two sharp breaths and he locates the sound to his left.
A figure steps out fiercely from under the shadowed lintel.
The only thing missing is a fucking zither.
“Hast du mich nicht gehört, Junge? Ihre Papiere, bitte.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake. Peter.”
Peter doesn’t smile.
“I thought you spoke fluent German, Thomas. And you have seen Great Escape, haven’t you? Classic mistake.”
“This is Paris, Peter. Not fucking Stalag Luft whatever.”
“That’s not the point, Thomas. And why don’t you get your little Irish friend to join us?”
Tom’s little heart sinks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Peter.”
Peter guffaws. Tom had never heard Peter guffaw before.
“Just going for a little nightwalk then, are we? Which just happened to be in the same direction as me. Yes?”
That’s when the lights flash back on.
Tom had to adjust.
But he never noticed Peter never had to.
Tom swallowed.
“Maybe your father had it wrong, Thomas. You’re not cut out for this line of work. Perhaps,” Peter’s expression was fearsome, now, another one he’d never seen before, “your dear father was wrong, after all. Perhaps you should ask your mother for a transfer to the civilian diplomatic service? What do you think?”
Tom hesitated for only a very brief moment. Before suddenly realising he didn’t actually give a fuck anymore.
“I think fuck you, Peter. In fact, what I really think is that I should be asking you what the fuck you’re doing sneaking around this arrondissement at this hour, having been summoned for a sudden little audience with our new Ambassador. Presumably about some mad girl who thinks she’s from a parallel world, yes?”
To his shock, Peter didn’t rise to that shit in the slightest.
And to his annoyance, Peter went all patronising on him again.
“Now that, Thomas, is a far better attitude. Perhaps I was wrong about you after all, and you really are suited to this line of work.”
“Fuck off.”
Peter nonchalantly glances up the alley, where Tom’s Irish counterpart emerges from the shadows. With a grin on his face.
As good a tactic as any.
“Peter! So good to meet you at last!”
Peter declines the offer of a handshake. Just glares at him instead.
“Right. Well,” Peter has already rehearsed these sorts of situations more times than Tom or Sean will ever know, “now you are both here, the only way I can get you off my back is as follows. As you know, Thomas, I have a hundred different contacts in this city, the product of years of cultivation. And I will be damned if I allow a couple of paranoid little juniors to fuck that all up. I see these contacts pretty much every day, every lunchtime, every dinner, every evening, and sometimes when the likes of you are either absorbed in your little beauty sleeps or suckling on your Irish stout or being seduced by obvious French spies masquerading as innocent French tarts. Yes, Tom, it should be obvious to you. Isn’t that right, Sean?”
Sean, perhaps for the first time, could only offer something slightly approximating embarrassment. And the semiconscious wondering if Peter had been tuned to their conversation all along.
He wouldn’t put it past him.
But Sean, for his part, wasn’t bad at recoveries himself.
“I did try and warn him, for what it’s worth.”
Peter snorted. Then turned back to Tom. “Sean isn’t as stupid as he makes out, Thomas.”
Tom’s desire to punch Peter dissipated a little. But only a little. He didn’t respond.
“So here’s your information. And you can put this in your file, Sean. Yes, I am on my way to meet a contact. And yes, this contact may have some information about our beautiful young visitor. With whom, I may observe, you are quite taken, Thomas. If I’m not wrong?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Peter. She’s fucking mad.”
“Aren’t we all, Thomas? Isn’t this entire world mad? What’s one more mad girl in a world full of lunatics?”
“I never put you down as a philosopher, Peter.”
“When in Paris, Thomas. When in Paris.”
Tom inhaled the cold air deeply again.
“I tell you what, Thomas. And you, Sean. In exchange for the two of you going back to that delightful little Irish pub of yours, I will offer you a glimpse of whatever report my contact inspires me to write overnight. With the usual redactions, of course. But I will keep you in the loop. How about that?”
Sean wasn’t expecting that. “Erm, yeah. Sure.” He almost felt like pulling a grin but stopped himself. That would be an expression too far.
“Deal? Thomas?”
Tom sighed. Then nodded. “Sure. Ok.”
Peter flashed the kind of smile Sean had wanted to do. As if only for balance. “Excellent. Then we’re done. I believe the pub is that way.” He motioned back from whence they’d come.
And didn’t flinch anymore.
Sean started in that direction and motioned for Tom to follow.
But Tom, all of a sudden, growing up for once in his life, as if some fermenting decision had deeply come of age inside his soul, blinked Peter just the barest slight of a sly smile, just for a single split, lingering just enough for Peter to notice, before turning away.
He quickly caught up with Sean.
And clicked off the record button on his standard issue watch.
The one with the microphone.
Peter watched them until they’d rounded the corner.
And then kept watching.
He glanced at his own watch.
Flicked a little switch, and the sky went out again. And the shadows feasted.
If you were to try and find him again now, reader dear, you won’t.
So don’t even fucking bother.
Because you will lose.
You will lose.
When the next instalment is ready, here shall a link be also.
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Thoroughly enjoyable (pace, emotions, mood switches an' all) - & you know I don't say such things lightly.
Personally I think Peter may be one of the Undead - but not Bela Lugosi.
Peter is a mysterious and strange young man.