A Divided Spy (Thomas Kell Spy Thriller, Book 3) by Charles Cumming Read Free Book Online

bedroom and bathroom to the rear of the apartment. ‘But not seriously,’ he said. ‘The blade must have touched his wrist as I went to disarm him.’
    Riedle listened intently, though Kell was spinning a further deceit. The man who had been holding the knife was a former Polish intelligence officer named Rafal Suda whom Kell had met many years earlier while working on an SIS operation in Gdansk. Rafal had snapped open a small vial of theatrical blood that had dripped, effectively enough, on to the cobbles. His accomplice, Xavier Baeyens, a retired Belgian Customs official, had acquired the motorbike on which Suda had made his escape. He had stripped the plates, fudged the insurance, and put enough petrol in the tank to get to Bruges.
    ‘Should I call the police?’ Riedle asked.
    It was a question Kell had been expecting and one for which he had prepared a suitably tortured answer.
    ‘It’s difficult,’ he said. ‘The same thing happened to a friend of mine in London recently. Broad daylight, cameras everywhere, two witnesses to a mugging at knifepoint. She lost her bag, her wedding ring, a cellphone, about three hundred pounds in cash. The police did nothing. They tried, of course, but it was impossible to track down the men who had attacked her. She got lost in weeks of bureaucracy and eventually nothing came of it.’
    Riedle was momentarily frustrated. He wanted justice. Kell could see it in his face.
    ‘But they looked like drug dealers and local criminals,’ he said. ‘There might be photographs on file at the … the …’ He struggled for the correct English term. ‘Commissariat? Precinct?’
    ‘Police station,’ said Kell.
    ‘Yes. We could identify them.’
    The brave English neighbour managed to look suitably dismayed by this idea.
    ‘If you need to do that, Bernie, of course I’d be happy to help. But I’m very busy with work and, being one hundred per cent honest, slightly reluctant to get dragged into a court case. I live in London, I’d have to keep coming back and forth to Brussels. You seem unharmed. Nothing was stolen, so you have no need to file an insurance claim. But of course if you
want
to …’
    Riedle nodded. He could hardly ask Peter to waste time speaking to the police, to assist in pressing charges or to travel regularly from London to Brussels to stand as a witness in any ensuing trial. It was just a street mugging, after all. He had lost nothing but his dignity. It would be best for Riedle to comply with the wishes of the man who had so uncomplainingly come to his rescue.
    ‘Of course, of course,’ he said, turning towards the kitchen. He gestured at Kell to sit down. ‘Better to have a drink and forget all about it. These scum will never be found.’
    As Kell muttered ‘Yes’, the mobile phone in his jacket buzzed with an incoming text. He assumed it was Harold, sitting upstairs in the rented apartment on the fourth floor, doubtless helping himself to a large tumbler of Kell’s single malt. Mowbray had been waiting in the lobby as Kell approached the passageway on Rue des Chartreux, ready to intercept any neighbour who threatened to leave the building while the mugging was taking place.
    Kell checked the phone. It was a text from Rafal. He had met up with Xavier. They had abandoned the motorbike. Kell gave them the all-clear and thanked them for a job well done. Suda was due to return to Poland the next day, Xavier to take a ten-day holiday in Accra. Kell was putting the phone back in his pocket when Riedle appeared from the kitchen.
    ‘Can I make you a drink?’
    Kell asked for whisky. His commitment to remaining on the wagon had lasted only until his first night in Brussels, when he had succumbed to the temptation of a glass of Talisker. He was not yet back on the cigarettes, but reckoned the Minasian operation would have him on twenty a day before the end of the month. As a precaution, he had bought a packet of Winston Lights and stowed them, still sealed, in the