The Lucy Ghosts

Then there was nothing. Just their harsh breathing.

He tried to turn the handle of his door, but it was jammed. He knew they had to get out, in case the damn thing exploded. He twisted and leant over Billie, slammed at her door. It opened. 'Go!' he ordered. 'Go now! Move!'

She didn't need to be told, just went through the door and the snow and debris round her. She turned and looked back, saw he was behind her. He still carried the gun, loosely in his left hand, and she marvelled at his ability to let nothing interfere with his purpose. She kept running.

Then she heard him laughing. She swung round again and saw that he had stopped.

'Come on!' she shouted. 'Don't stop! Run!'

'It can't blow up. The fucking thing ran out of fuel.'

Then she started to laugh.

At that moment the plane exploded, a great slash of a fireball erupted up into the trees, then vanished just as suddenly, leaving a deafening in their ears.

Billie had thrown herself to the ground and she looked to where Adam still stood. The bastard was still grinning.

'Just shows you how wrong you can be, eh?'

He held out his hand and helped her up, brushed the snow that was caked to her. Then he put his arms around her.

The Trabant driver had seen the explosion and he pulled off the autobahn and down the gentle incline towards them. It was the only vehicle on that strip of road; the bad weather had kept most drivers at home or in their offices.

'What happened?' the driver shouted as he clambered out. A young man in his middle twenties, wore a cheap, but new, brown suit submerged by a wide garish flower patterned tie. The suit was of a style long since gone; early Armani in its baggy shape. Over his shoulder he carried a portable phone in a plastic case, slung as one would a shoulder holster. 'What happened?' he repeated. 'Are you all right?'

Adam turned towards Armani Man and led Billie towards the car. 'We're fine,' he returned. 'Everything's okay.'

'What the hell happened?'

'Plane ran out of fuel. Couldn't make the road to land.' Adam led Billie past the young man who gaped past them at the flaming wreck. 'Fucking fantastic.'

'We need to get out of here,' yelled Adam as he got to the little yellow car. 'Can you take us?'

'What about the police?' Armani Man asked as he caught them up.

'What about them?'

'Shouldn't we tell …?' He stopped suddenly as he took in Adam's dishevelled appearance. 'You're a mess. You in the Army?'

'We have to get to Berlin.' Adam ignored the questions.

'You've a foreign accent.'

'British.'

'You on the run?'

'Look, just take us to Berlin.' Adam was impatient, wanted to get moving before any further traffic came upon them. 'We'll make it worth your while.'

Armani Man thought for a moment, then grinned. 'My mother always told me I'd get into trouble. Come on.'

Billie climbed into the back of the car, a two-door 501S. Adam and Armani Man sat in the front and the young German started up, fiddled with the strange little gear lever that disappeared into the dashboard, and wheeled the car back onto the main road.

'I'm Bernard,' he said as they headed north. 'You're lucky. I was going to Berlin anyway. Pissed off with the south. No bloody work. No bloody nothing. The price of reunification. All everyone wants is a free fucking ride.'

'Thanks, anyway. I'm Adam. That's Billie.'

He looked backwards and acknowledged Billie who nodded back at him. 'You speak good German. For a foreigner. Why you on the run?'

'Not from the police. From people out to harm us.'

'I could've called the police.'

'No point complicating things. We'll sort it out in Berlin.'

'You look like shit.'

'I feel like shit.'

Bernard laughed. 'I don't suppose you've got any money.'

'Not on me. But I meant it when I said I'd make it worth your while.'

'That's the fucking trouble. No-one's got any money when you need it.'

The Trabant trundled towards Berlin, fifty kilometres to the north. Bernard talked as he drove, told them of his life in Cotbus, the town he had lived all his life in and was now leaving. It was a dreary story; a tale that was commonplace a million times over in modern Germany. After the hope came the despair. The search for jobs and a better future became a shuffling migration for millions in the East, and a bitter resentment for those in the West who saw their own future threatened, their own prosperity reduced. Bernard, after trying to earn a living dealing in anything he could buy and sell, had learnt the first harsh lesson of any would-be entrepreneur. If you want to sell something, you've got to have someone who wants to buy it. The simple law of supply and demand. And in Cotbus, like most towns in East Germany, money was for surviving, not for luxuries. Bernard's line of toiletries, including soft tissue paper for the bathroom, was considered by most a luxury.

'Three years. That's how long I stuck it out,' he rambled as the car sped north at sixty kilometres an hour, smoke belching out from its exhaust stack. 'Three years and all I've got to show for it is nothing. Just a bill from the company for all the stuff they supplied me with. If they want it back, they'll have to come and get it. It's all stacked up in my front room.'

'Why?' asked Billie.

'I had to go on ordering, didn't I?' He laughed. 'Otherwise they'd have stopped sending me the stuff. Perfumes, toilet papers, toilet brushes, toothbrushes. You name it. I got it. They thought I was selling a fortune. I thought if I kept ordering, built up my stock, then when things got better, I'd just go out and sell it all.'

'You should've stuck it out. Things always change.'

'Not when the wessie bailiffs arrive.'

'Wessie?'

'West Germans. We're Ossies. Reunification, my arse.'

'So you ran?'

'Too right. You should've seen them. Big buggers. Nearly as big as the bill they wanted me to pay. I wasn't going to hang around and argue with them. Slammed the door in their face, jumped the back wall and headed for Berlin. Fuck Cotbus. Fuck them all.'

'You don't have a cigarette, do you?'

'Don't smoke. Used to. Can't afford them.'

'Doesn't this thing go any faster?' asked Adam, ignoring Billie's smug expression.

'Not unless you want to blow up. A Zwickau special. That's where they make them. They say the policy was to make them slow. That way they kept the crime figures down. Nobody could get away from the police.'

'So that's why you didn't call the police.'

'Everybody's on the run. That's Germany. Keep moving and maybe you'll make it. You can see why they went for Hitler, can't you?'

'No,' snapped Adam.

'All you see is what he did to the Jews. And the War. That wasn't good. But before that, then he was great. He gave Germany a pride. Filled people's bellies. Instead of the despair that people like my grandparents had. Then he went too far. Now, with all these riots, with all our troubles, we could do with someone like him.'

Adam said nothing; an argument would serve no purpose at this stage.

Half an hour later they drove into the outskirts of Berlin.

The streets were clear of snow and slush melted on the pavements. A few pedestrians slithered along as dusk turned to dark and the street lights built in brightness.

'Where do you want to be dropped?' asked Bernard.

'The Tiergarten. Do you know it?'

'Never been here before. Not even when they pulled the Wall down. But there's got to be a sign. That's where the Reichstag is. In the Tiergarten. It's where your people are going.'

'Who?'

‘Our Chancellor. The American President. And the Russkie. They're here for the big ceremony at the Reichstag. With the whole Bundestag. A proper parliament for Germany. The first time since the place was burnt down. They say it was Hitler's people, you know. Crazy. Why would he burn it down? They arrested a communist in the end. Blame Hitler for everything. Even…'