Stealth luggage

It was just after 10pm, local time. Ricey Bob, a man of unidentified profession, uncertain age and a concealed country of birth, stepped out of the bus from Baden- Baden airport to Strassbourg. Everything had gone smoothly. He had travelled inconspicuously on Ryanair, and had drawn no attention to himself on the flight, other than by ordering an extortionate pre-packaged pannini. He was pretty sure that no-one had followed him, and that neither Mickey the Nose nor Alex the Florist knew he was in town and about to deliver them more bad news than the Sunday review section of the Daily Mail.

His clothes were inconspicuous - perhaps a little cold for Strassbourg in February, but not enough to give away the fact that he was a stranger in a strange town. He'd even gone so far as to ditch both of his monocles in favour of contact lenses, and had shaved off his trademark asymmetric moustache. In this no-man's city that was neither France nor Germany, he could have been any one of a million nameless strangers going about their daily business.

He collected his luggage - a single carry- on bag (no point in hanging around in front of the security cameras in baggage reclaim) - from the back of the bus. Instinctively, he reached into the pocket of his duffel coat for his meerschaum and matches, but checked himself: that pipe, with its obscene dolphin carvings, would be recognized by any one of Mickey's men if they happened to be watching, which they probably were. This was not a game where you took chances. Not if you knew what they'd done to Billy "two-legs" McAllister.

Settling for a cigarette and checking his spelling, he cautiously scanned the side-streets leading off from the bus station from behind his cupped hands as the match flared. Satisfied that he wasn't being watched, he extended the handle on his wheeled carry-on bag and took three nonchalent strides in the direction signposted "Centre Ville".

Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tippa-tat-a. The noise brought him up short. His heart leapt to his throat, and his hand to the 24mm ceramic-barreled Glock und Spiel in his breast pocket. He checked himself just in time - getting his weapon out would be a grave error, especially in this biting wind. Slowly, he took another step, trying to look unconcerned. RAT-a-tat-a-TAT. Again, he stopped, the sweat breaking out on the brow beneath his fedora.

He cursed himself for not having forseen this problem. How, he asked himself with a sense of rising panic, was he going to walk casually and inconspicuously through the dark, silent streets of Strassbourg on a Sunday night, with the wheels of his carry- on luggage announcing to everyone within a hundred yards that he was an out-of- towner?

If only, he thought to himself, someone, somewhere had had the presence of mind to invent a quiet-wheeled carry-on bag. Perhaps the wheels would need to a be a little larger - say four inches across. Perhaps they'd need soft rubber tyres instead of the tiny hard plastic wheels on his current luggage. Perhaps it would be a few grams heavier, and have a couple of inches less space for his collection of scarves.

But, standing in the cold, street-lit air of Strassbourg, with a long walk through quiet streets ahead of him, he would willingly have sacrificed a little scarf- carrying space to be rid of the rattle that would draw attention to him like a salmon at a bar mitzvah.

It was going to be a long, tough night.