Deception by Adrian Magson

cracked window on my last visit about three weeks ago – a blackbird had hit it – so I placed a panel of three-ply over it until I get the owner’s agreement to replace the glass.’ He pulled a wry face. ‘I suppose I can whistle goodbye to that, if she’s gone missing.’
    He had a thought. It was a long shot, but Griffiths was about the same age as Vanessa Tan, and the catchment area for schools here would probably have covered a fairly wide patch. He took out the photo and said, ‘Is this the owner? You might have known her.’ He was to be disappointed.
    â€˜No idea. I never met her.’ Griffiths looked at the photo and made a soft whistling noise. ‘I wish I had, though. Would’ve made life a lot more interesting.’
    Harry thanked him for his help. The fact that they’d never met cut down the need to ask any further questions. He returned to the car. On the way, he rang Rik and asked him to access the phone records for the Tan number. Then he set off back to London. There was nothing to be gained by staying around here. It was a blind, going nowhere.
    Thirty minutes later, Rik sent a text.
    Subscriber Ms V Tan, address as given. Bills paid by DD – Barclays. Call record shows no outgoing, no voicemail.
    Harry switched off the phone. At least the drive back gave him plenty of time to think. Mainly about what had happened to Vanessa Tan, hard-working, nose-to-the-grindstone student with ambitious parents. Had the enforced studies coupled with military service been a push too much, or had something more sinister happened to make her disappear?
    He took out the photo and glanced at it as he drove. Something was tugging at the corner of his mind. Something Mrs Crane had said  . . . and Griffiths, too. But whatever it was wouldn’t come. Instinct told him it was significant, but knowing that didn’t help.

TWELVE
    I n a small bar in Wandsbek, a district of north-east Hamburg, three men sat around a table in a back function room. One of them was talking quietly on a mobile. The other two waited patiently. The room lights were on and the broad Friedrich-Ebert-Damm outside hummed with the rush of traffic. Four glasses and a chilled carafe of Mosel stood on a tray in the centre, but none of the men had yet taken a drink.
    â€˜It’s done.’ The man on the phone switched it off and dropped it into his breast pocket. Then he reached for the carafe and poured three measures of wine. Thomas Deakin was slim, fair-haired and tanned, with quick eyes and a way of checking his surroundings on a constant rotation. It was unsettling to anyone meeting him for the first time, but a habit those around him had come to accept. He had the antennae of a guard dog and his instincts had served him well since going AWOL – a useful function for a man permanently guarding his back. He hadn’t stepped foot inside the UK since walking away from his unit in the Scots Guards while in transit through Germany, and was constantly on the move from one country to another, regularly changing identities to stay ahead of anyone hunting him. Infrequent meetings in anonymous bars like this, with routes in and out guaranteed and locations never used more than once, were what had kept him out of trouble for so long.
    â€˜Which one?’ The man to his left was in his early forties, whipcord thin, balding and ascetic-looking. Former Master Sergeant Greg Turpowicz, a Texan, had taken his own leave of the US 101st Airborne Division and joined Deakin after surviving too many close shaves in a job he had long ceased to care about.
    â€˜Pike. The Signals wonk. They iced him on the way to Colchester. That’s the British Military Detention Centre,’ he added, for the American’s benefit.
    â€˜What a waste.’ The third man was Colin Nicholls, once a major in the Intelligence Corps. ‘I was counting on getting Pike on board. What went wrong?’ His tone was