Flashback (The Saskia Brandt Series Book Two) by Ian Hocking

Checkpoint Charlie Museum, the yucca, the curtained door, the sideboard with weight training gloves crossed on top, the ebony floor. The smell of toast made that morning and the perfume mixed for Saskia in the south of France.
    The man turned. He, too, had been contemplating the hallway. ‘Dick Cory. But everyone calls me Cory.’
    ‘I’m Jem.’
    At last, they shook hands. His palm had a rough knot of skin and, on instinct, Jem turned it over.
    ‘An old burn,’ said Cory. He made a fist but Jem had already seen the reversed letters.
    ‘‘Pyrene’?’
    ‘They make fire extinguishers.’ He smiled. ‘Ironically.’
    ‘I came to see if Saskia...’
    ‘Let me fix you a drink.’
    ‘She keeps a whisky bottle on the right of the dishwasher.’
    Cory searched her face. ‘I know.’

Chapter Eight
    Jem took the white leather sofa and Cory the reclining chair. They faced each other, stranger to stranger. The balcony doors were open. The net curtains sagged and bloomed. Rain was loud on the tiles. She rocked her glass: a tick to send the ice away, a tock to bring it back.
    ‘I am Saskia’s father.’
    ‘Her father?’
    ‘She came to us late in life. I retired when Germany was still in pieces. Don’t let the cane fool you. I can still click my heels.’
    Jem smiled. His words were at odds with the artificiality of their situation. She suspected that he was used to keeping his head when all about him were losing theirs. It made her playful. She said, ‘Saskia never mentioned her father.’
    ‘I never mention Saskia.’
    ‘You’re not German. American?’
    ‘I was born in Atlanta, but took advantage of economic opportunities in Germany following the war. Dortmund, mostly. That’s where I met Saskia’s mother. Yourself?’
    ‘I’m from South West England.’
    ‘Oh, I’ve been to Plymouth.’
    ‘My sympathies.’
    He blinked to acknowledge the remark, but his lips only curled with the application of his glass. He held the whisky in his mouth before swallowing.
    ‘So were you coming or going?’ she asked.
    ‘Pardon me?’
    ‘When I arrived, the lights were out upstairs.’
    He sipped his drink again. ‘Going.’
    As his eyes moved away from her, Jem considered his story. She believed that a man like him could father a woman like Saskia. The details, though, were too pat. The remark about Atlanta was redolent of rehearsal, smooth as Saskia thumbing bullets from her gun. Jem could imagine Cory as old guard CIA, a high-up bureaucrat who had long since abandoned the physicality of spying but not the comfort of tradecraft.
    ‘Jem, I’m afraid I have to tell you something about Saskia.’
    Spoken, the name unlocked a door inside her. ‘I ran away at the airport.’
    ‘Tell me what happened.’
    But she did not hear him. She gripped her chair and felt the shifting forces of the dive as the passengers held on and prayed that the pilots could solve the riddle of their instruments. Hands groping for other hands. Comfort in the last of moments. Business deals incomplete. Journeys truncated and lives unfinished. Jem shuddered. Something touched her hand and she focused her eyes on Cory’s palm, which he had placed again on hers. She felt his scar. Pyrene .
    ‘Hush.’ He touched away one of her tears. ‘As Saskia’s father, I am her next of kin. I should take care of her affairs. Do you understand?’
    Jem nodded and let the water spill from her eyes. A drop found her lip and she remembered Saskia gathering fistfuls of her blue Schlumpf hair.
    ‘Jem? Does she have a computer? Is it behind the curtained door?’
    ‘Mr Cory, I’m tired.’
    ‘The door has a wirelessly-operated lock. Did you see her use the release? It could be anywhere. A TV remote control. An unused light switch.’
    A fairy tale.
    Jem shook her head to clear it. She noticed, again, that Cory was holding her hand, but now it felt wrong.
    ‘Are you really Saskia’s father?’
    For a moment, anger collected in his eyes, and Jem wondered