Deceptions by Anna Porter (fox in socks read aloud TXT) 📗

“Hotel,” she said and pointed downhill. There was sure to be a hotel in this area. “I’ll be here, and thank you.” Then, as if it were an afterthought, “How about Mrs. Magyar? Won’t she be here?”

“No. She is gone.”

“Well, then . . .” she waved as she ran up the hill.

Németh’s house was one street away, an odd-shaped white building — flat roof, cupola, tall, thin windows — that glowed in the dark. It was surrounded by a low hedge, some naked statues, more oakleaf hydrangea bushes with late-blooming flowers, a water-feature with running water she could hear and, amazingly, frogs. There was no guard, but the entrance gate was high, and there were cameras mounted on the lamppost across the street. The gate was open and a silver Mercedes sat outside the two-car garage. Someone must have just arrived or was about to leave.

Judging by the angle of the cameras, Helena could see that only the entrance and garage area were under surveillance. She took off the pink bandana, pulled a black scarf over her head, hiding her hair and most of her face, climbed over the fence, landed safely on the other side, and lay still near the pond. No alarm, no shouts, no sirens. She rose and padded softly to the house, flat against the wall, and looked in the first-storey window. Only one small lamp cast an orange light on a lot of heavy furniture, some frames on the walls. She watched as a man came into the room, looked around, and grabbed a briefcase from a table. His face was briefly lit up by the lamp. He had put on some weight around the jowls since his internet portrait was taken, but there was no doubt this was Géza Németh. He opened his briefcase, decided he needed something else, turned, shouted, and waited. A slim-waisted woman appeared with something that looked like a pack of cigarettes, handed it to him, and kissed him on the mouth.

Helena had seen what she could and crept back toward the fence. If the archer was here, he would have to be hiding upstairs. Highly unlikely, given the hour and that Németh was leaving the house. Still, she waited until he had left. The woman stood still inside. Helena pocketed the black scarf, pulled on her pink bandana and left to check out the third residence.

Nagy lived lower down the hill in a more modest two-storey house half-hidden behind some poplars and nondescript evergreen shrubs. Even in the dark with no lights on, Helena could see that it would have been a fine addition to Rosedale, the Toronto neighbourhood where she had grown up. The stone fence was more decorative than effective. A BMW was parked on the street, and a man was sitting in the driver’s seat reading. On closer inspection, the driver turned out to have a round face, low forehead, dark-rimmed half-glasses, a wide nose, thick eyebrows, and stubby fingers that hovered over his iPhone.

Helena knocked on the window and prepared her most disarming smile. It took the man a full minute to look up, and a bit longer to register that Helena was not whomever he had been expecting. “Igen?” he said, as he wound his window down.

“French?” Helena asked.

“Okay,” he said, lowering his window all the way down. He noted her outfit, tried to see her face under the bandana, as she stepped sideways, out of the streetlamp’s light and used her move to encourage him to look up, where she could see his face. It was not Nagy. And not the archer. His features were too thick, mouth too fleshy, cheekbones too high.

“Je viens voir Monsieur Nagy,” she said with a heavy American accent.

“Il n’est pas . . . là,” the man said with an even heavier Russian accent, pointing at the house.

“N’est pas à la maison? Mais ç’est terriblement gênant,” she said very quickly and went on even faster to detail how inconvenient it was because she had a message that couldn’t wait, and she wouldn’t be able to come back later this evening or even tomorrow or any time, really, as far as she could tell because, for God’s sake, she had to go back to Strasbourg.

As soon as she said “Strasbourg,” he opened the door of the car and, emerging slowly, switched to English. “I didn’t understand,” he said fairly clearly with an overlay of Russian. “What did you say?”

“When?” Helena asked.

“Just now, what you said,” he repeated. He had planted his feet on either side of hers and looked at her with some interest.

“About Monsieur Nagy?”

“Yes.” He was becoming impatient.

Helena offered him another of her disarming smiles. “You are not Hungarian,” she said.

“No. What you want with Mr. Nagy?”

“His boss — my boss — wanted to talk with him about his visit to Strasbourg.”

“Who?” He shouted. “Who you work for?” There was no mistaking his tone or the bulge on the side of his jacket, but his right hand was still on the car door and his left still held the phone he had been perusing when she arrived. There were advantages to his feet straddling hers, including the obvious one: he had not yet begun to think that she was a threat.

“Mr. Magyar,” she said. Judging by Attila’s information about the three men, she picked Magyar as the most senior, whose name would mean something to a man in front of Nagy’s house.

“And what else did you say about Nagy?” He pronounced “Nagy” with a zh, the Russian way: “Nazh.”

“I said he was going to Strasbourg,” she said with one last attempt at a sweet smile. “Tomorrow?”

The man shook his head, a gesture that reminded Helena of a dog shaking off excess water.

“He had a visit from a friend today in his office.”

The man tensed. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“I am also wondering why in hell a nice guy like Nagy would need a big gorilla of a Russian thug sitting in his car, guarding his doorway,” she