The Follower

Dufour met me in the café to give me my initial instructions. “You’re to follow this man,” he said, handing over a file, with photo and such information as they had on him. “He’s staying at the Wilton Hotel in Fourth Street.”

 

“Who is he?”

 

“We don’t know. The name he is using is Max Redtop, but it’s a made up name, pure fiction. We know he’s working for Them, but we don’t know in what capacity.”

 

“Who else is watching him? How do I hand-over?”

 

Dufour shook his head, then nodded his head, the latter as a signal to the waiter, who was immediately beside us. “Eggs,” Dufour said, “in the usual manner.”

 

“I’ll have the same,” I said, as I’d not gotten round to looking at the menu.

 

“There won’t be any handovers,” Dufour said when the waiter had gone, “There is only you. Frankly we don’t think this Redtop is worth 24/7 surveillance. You’ll pick up your instructions here, they’ll be inserted inside the menu. Any reports or messages for us, simply put them in the menu when you order.”

 

“But what if I can’t get here? What if he goes to another city?”

 

“Ring this number,” he handed me the business card of a city tailor. “Tell him Mr Watkins is phoning about his trousers, give a number for the hotel you’re staying at, and we’ll contact you there.”

 

xxx

 

For the first few days Redtop never left the hotel. I began to think he’d moved away while I was in the café with Dufour, but finally he surfaced, only to walk a short circular route around the hotel seven times, before returning to his room. 

 

Over the next few days I followed him on walks, and visits to bars and cafés, where he would sometimes sit nursing a drink for hours, as if he were waiting for something. At no point did he give any indication what he was doing for Them.

 

One day, I followed him to the café I used to pick up messages, though he gave no indication that he had noticed me or that he knew of the café’s use as a drop. It was lunchtime, but he sat there for over an hour without ordering, sipping on his tea and gazing distractedly around the café. I daren’t order food myself, in case he suddenly left, it would look suspicious to leave a just-delivered meal, so I too sat there nursing a cup of tea. 

 

The waiter handed me a second menu, clearly keen for me to order food. Except, when I looked inside there was a message. “You’re being watched,” it said. “Table 7.”

 

I looked over at table 7, where there was a man reading a newspaper and nursing a cup of tea. He had, I recalled, entered just after I had, meaning that he too had been here for over an hour without ordering lunch.

 

I ordered a sandwich, and paid for it in advance, knowing that if I had to leave I’d be able to take it with me and eat on the hoof, which wouldn’t look as suspicious. I watched the man at table 7, he too ordered a sandwich and paid for it in advance.

 

I was able to stay and eat my lunch in the café, as not long afterwards Redtop ordered himself a sandwich.

 

By now I was watching both men, Redtop and the man at table 7. We all finished our sandwiches and ordered coffee. Then we sat and waited, 7 reading his paper, Redtop writing something on his mobile, me scribbling into the red leather notebook I’d purchased to take notes of the case.

 

Time passed. Redtop ordered another coffee. Number 7 ordered another coffee. I ordered another coffee. Neither of them seemed about to leave, but you could never be sure in this game. After several hours of watching Redtop and drinking coffee after coffee I was desperate for the toilet, but daren’t go, in case Redtop left the café while I was in there. Maybe I could coincide my visit with Redtop’s, who also hadn’t been, but I’d been thinking that for the last three hours and the opportunity hadn’t come.

 

The man on table 7 must have been going through the same agonies. “Excuse  me,” he asked the waiter, “Where is the toilet.”  The waiter pointed straight ahead, at the big sign above the door directly in front of him, which said ‘Toilets’.

 

“Ah, thank you,” said the man, who started towards the toilets, only to stop and pretend to take a mobile phone call. Clearly he wanted to check that I wasn’t about to leave the café.

 

I decided to take the same approach, walking towards the toilet, but pausing to toy with my phone, enabling me to make a last minute check on Redtop.

 

It was lucky I did, as Redtop rose from his chair. I was about to double back into the café, when I realised that Redtop was also heading towards the toilet. I quickly ended my pretend phone call and followed number seven into the toilets.

 

There was only one cubicle, which was engaged, so I stood at one end of the urinal and number 7 at the other. Within seconds Redtop had joined us, and we both had to squeeze to the sides to let him in.

 

Number 7 was first to finish and turned towards the door. I had hoped that Redtop would move down the urinal and give me more room, so I was watching when he suddenly ceased his pee mid-flow and started hastily turned to leave.

 

“It’s all right,” number 7 said, “I’m washing my hands.”

 

With this Redtop readjusted himself and began to pee again. 

 

How extraordinary. So Redtop and number 7 knew each other. But if number 7 was following me then surely they must both have known I was following Redtop. Or did they?

 

“I’ll dry my hands now,” number 7 said, allowing Redtop to finish. Redtop washed his hands while number 7 waited, pretending to play with his mobile phone again.

 

“We’ll wait for you,” number 7 said, turning to me.

 

How extraordinary. This must be some new approach to spying, I lose touch with the latest approaches, doubtless the theory was called something like ‘invisibility through engagement’ or something similar. I graduated from sypschool during the cold war, everything was much simpler then.

 

Once I’d washed and dried my hands the three of us left the toilet together.

 

I returned to my coffee, but not for long. Number 7 walked over to my table.

 

“We might as well drop the pretence,” he said. “I’ve been spying on you all week,” he said.

 

What was this? Another new theory, ‘secrecy through openness’, ‘deceit through truth’?  I really must read up on the latest theory, I was beginning to feel very much a spy from yesteryear.

 

Number 7 gave me no time to respond to his announcement, he stood up and began walking to Redtop’s table. He turned round at the halfway point. “Come on,” he said to me, and gestured to me to join him, which, reluctantly, I did.

 

“You’ve been spying on me all week,” he said to Redtop, not accusingly, just stating a fact. “And he’s been spying on you,” he pointed to me.

 

“Is this true?” Redtop asked. I nodded. Perhaps not the best technique, but in the circumstances why not give ‘deceit through truth’ a go.

 

I had a thousand and one questions to ask, but number 7 spoke first.

 

“So where do we want to go on holiday? I’ve always fancied Egypt.”

 

I stared at him, non-comprehendingly. To his credit, Redtop understood immediately.

 

“No, not Egypt, especially at this time of year, far too touristy. We want to go somewhere quiet, out of the way, where we can go for scenic walks and follow it with good beer and hearty food. The Lake District?” 

 

“Sorry,” I interrupted. “You’ve been spying on me and now you want to take me on holiday.”

 

Redtop explained. “We’re all being paid to spy on each other, which means we can all waste our time walking round in circles and sitting in cafés, or we can have a bit of fun."

 

“Frankly this spying lark is miserable work, boring, and long hours,” number 7 added. “We might as well see the sight.”

 

I slowly began to understand. “So I tell my bosses that you’re going to Egypt, get them to pay my flights and accommodation, and we simply go on holiday.”

 

“Well, not Egypt, apparently,” number 7 said, “but not the Lake District either, can’t you be a bit more glamorous Redtop?”

 

“How about Austria. That’s very nice this time of year.”

 

“Sounds good. I could do with brushing up my German, we get a bonus payment for using languages.”

 

We spent two weeks in Austria, followed by a beer-tasting tour of Germany and the Czech Republic, a week recovering in Switzerland and a month in Canada.

 

“I can’t believe it,” Dufour said when he finally managed to catch me on the phone. “Redtop must be far more important than we thought, jetting around the world like this, he must be planning something really big."

 

Redtop, number 7and myself had realised that our respective paymasters would require some form of report, including the occasional photo, so we simply took snaps of each other with random tourists we bumped into, in some cases making up reports as to who they were, but occasionally meeting a civil servant, journalist or businessman who might be a plausible contact. I struck luckiest, managing to take a snap of Redtop with a drunken Austrian who turned out to be CEO of a major European bank.

 

“If they’ve got the banks backing them on this is most be something really major,” Dufour said. “We’re making it a 24/7 operation.”

 

“24/7?”

 

“Yes, this is too big to leave gaps in the surveillance, we can’t expect you to be with him all the time. We’re sending you an assistant. Another agent, let call him Sergei.”

 

This was bad news, but I wasn’t alone. Redtop and number 7 were also sent support agents. This could really spoil our holiday.

 

“Redtop’s got a minion,” I told Sergei when he finally contacted me. “I can’t follow both of them, I need you to follow his minion.”

 

“But I’m supposed to help you follow Redtop. Should we contact Dufour?”

 

“We’d better not let him know. Frankly, I’m suspicious that no sooner do you arrive than Redtop gets a minion, someone must have tipped him off. I’ll do my best to track Redtop 24/7, you do the same for the minion.”

 

Redtop and number 7 briefed their minions with the same story. All three minions were new to the surveillance game, and spent most of the day either walking round in very short circles or sitting for endless hours in the same café, not daring to order food or even go to the toilet. Usually Redtop, number 7 or myself would have to come and relieve them.

 

It became our greatest pleasure to watch them trailing each other. On the second Sunday, this was during our long weekend in Paris, we watched them following each other round and round a small market place. They were there when the market was setting up, and still circling round and round when the market was shutting up for the night, late that evening.

 

However, we noticed that by this time Redtop’s minion was narrowing the circles, so that, inevitably, after another half hour, the three were right on top of each other, walking in each others’ literal shadow like a reinvention of the Three Stooges.

 

Redtop, number 7 and myself closed in, to overhear, as it was obvious that something about to happen.

 

Eventually Redtop’s minion spoke.

 

t’s pretty obvious that we’re all following each other,” he said. “The question is, what do we do about it?”

 

There was a long silence, which was eventually broken by Sergei. “Have either of you ever been to Egypt?”