by Martin Suter
Allmen pressed the doorbell. Not expecting anything. Just in case.
And who would have thought it: on the top floor, a window opened. A young man in a suit and tie stuck his head out. “Who are you looking for?”
“I have a query about this house.”
The man scrutinized Allmen and concluded that this elegant gentleman’s query might be of interest. “One moment!” he called, and shut the window.
Shortly afterward he opened the garden gate and came to meet Allmen. He held out his hand and introduced himself as “Schuler.”
“Allmen. Pleased to meet you.” He gave him his card, the CEO version again.
Schuler cast a glance at it. “Aha. A neighbor, as it were. How can I help you?”
Schuler’s short hair was slightly longer at the front and styled into hedgehog spines with gel. He used a rather obtrusive eau de toilette.
“I come past here often and keep seeing the house empty. Is it for sale?”
Schuler shook his head. “Unfortunately not. The property is only to rent.”
“Ah. Well, I might consider renting it too. But it would have to be a long-term lease.”
“The house is already rented. I’m sorry.” Schuler looked genuinely regretful.
“Are you the tenant?”
“No. I’m the agent.” He fished a business card from behind his breast-pocket handkerchief and passed it to Allmen. “Immolux,” it read, “your specialist for properties in a class of their own. Esteban Schuler, Assistant Vice President.”
“But the house doesn’t look terribly occupied, Herr Schuler.”
Schuler sighed. “It isn’t. The tenant never moved in properly.”
“What a pity for such a jewel.”
They both gazed in sympathy at the neglected house.
“Does he intend to return?” Allmen asked.
“We presume so. The contract runs till the end of the year.”
“Perhaps he might be interested in someone to take over the lease. I’d jump at the opportunity.”
Schuler looked at the potential client with the promising address. “But you have a very nice residence already.”
“Villa Schwarzacker? I would never give that up of course. But it’s becoming too small for my company’s purposes. What I need is somewhere else to live. Walking distance.”
Schuler agreed to a little tour.
In the large vestibule was a furniture delivery, still in its packaging. Otherwise the house was practically empty. In the kitchen were a few cooking implements; in the large salon, a sofa in front of the window, like a look-out bench. In the master bedroom a mattress lay on the floor, with fresh sheets—no doubt the work of Maria Moreno. A suit hung in a plastic moth-proof wardrobe. In the mosaic bathroom there was soap, shower gel, and an unopened tube of toothpaste with a “two for one” sticker on it.
The distinguishing architectural features of the house were round brick arches, wrought-iron decorations, imaginative parquet, and decorative stone flooring. Allmen felt like he was on the set of a 1950s music variety show.
The villa had eleven rooms, a sauna, a basement bar with crown glass windows, an automatic bowling alley, a climate-controlled wine cellar, utility rooms, and staff rooms.
The garden contained an artificial grotto with a grill and a fridge. And a kidney-shaped pool, surrounded by rough-hewn granite slabs. The only attractive thing was the view. Over the roofs of the houses farther down the hill, you could look down to the city and the lake in the changing light of the summer’s day.
The rent was sixteen thousand francs a month. Excluding service charges. Allmen described the price as fair.
“Let’s get right in touch with the tenant today,” he suggested.
Schuler turned his palms to the sky, helpless. “If only it were that simple. I don’t have a contact address. Neither a postal address nor email. And his cellphone doesn’t work. But I promise you, as soon he gets in touch with us, you’ll be hearing from me.”
13
Allmen loved the smell of freshly mowed lawns. He preferred it to freshly mowed fields. These reminded him of his childhood, the harbinger of the hay season. A sunburned neck, hay dust clinging to it, all itchy.
The scent of freshly mowed lawns did not awaken any bucolic memories. It was an elegant scent. It smelled of manor houses, golf clubs, lawn tennis, and garden parties. Including the ones at the Villa Schwarzacker back in the day, for which Allmen had put up Bedouin tents in case of bad weather, now mothballed in the villa’s shed. If Allmen had been a maître parfumeur, he would long ago have created a scent called “Lawn.”
But on this late afternoon, he would rather have gone without the scent of lawns if he could have talked sooner with the man unleashing it.
Carlos was astride the ride-on mower, taking tantalizingly slow laps although it was past five and his working hours were therefore over. Allmen watched him from the library, saw him emerge from behind the villa, chug up to the north hedge, turn, ride past again, and vanish behind the villa. Carlos remained hidden and Allmen knew it would still be a while till he had cleaned the mower and stowed it away in the shed.
He sat in his leather armchair and pretended to be engrossed in his book. But as soon as he saw Carlos finally approaching the garden house he stood up and went to the vestibule to bump into him by chance.
Carlos arrived in his gray overalls and a cloud of “Lawn” perfume.
He was about to withdraw to change, but Allmen held him back.
“I’ve been inside.”
“No me diga!”
“Sokolov never really lived in the house. Soon after he moved in he went underground.”
Allmen told Carlos about his chance meeting with the agent and gave him a detailed description of the house.
When he had finished his report, he asked, “What could make someone who has rented an expensive house, paid for it till the end of the year, and already ordered the furniture, vanish without trace?”
Carlos didn’t have to think twice. “Miedo.”
“Fear? He wasn’t afraid to steal a diamond worth forty-five million. Sokolov felt secure. Otherwise he wouldn’t have rented that villa. No, no, Sokolov set himself up to live a comfortable, affluent life. But then something happened.”
Carlos nodded thoughtfully. “I think so too, Don John. Something happened. Maybe something happened to him.” He excused himself and climbed the stairs to his quarters.
Before Allmen left the house—the premiere of Bellini’s La Sonnambula was on his agenda that night—he talked to Carlos again. He was standing in a dark suit in the small hallway waiting for Herr Arnold to ring the bell and take him to the Golden Bar. There he would drink the two margaritas he always drank before the opera. Carlos kept him company while he waited.
“Carlos, I’ve read that every computer has its own address.”
“Sí, Don John. An IP address.”
“And with that you can determine the computer’s location.”
“You can determine the location of the router connecting it to the Internet.”
“Why don’t you do that, Carlos?”
“I would have to go through his provider, but I don’t know who that is. The email address we got from Montgomery doesn’t work anymore. Sokolov’s email account isn’t on that server anymore.”
The bell rang. Carlos went to the intercom. “Yes?”
“Taxi,” came Herr Arnold’s voice.
“Herr von Allmen will be with you in a moment.” Carlos opened the door for Allmen and wished him a nice evening.
But Allmen stayed where he was. “What if Sokolov only changed his provider once he got to wherever he is now?”
“Then you could find the IP address via the old provider.”
Allmen looked at Carlos encouragingly.
Carlos shook his head. “Only from the administrator of the server.”
“Do you know who that is?”
“I could find out.”
“And why do
n’t you?”
“An administrator will only give an IP address to the police.”
“Ah.” Allmen went out into the balmy summer evening.
In less than a quarter of an hour, Carlos knew more about Sokolov’s former email server.
Sokolov’s address was [email protected]; http://www.phinnkka.com was registered in Kolbhausen, a suburb barely fifteen miles away. The server search showed him the location, and he could zoom in so closely he could see the street. It was called Schwarzkirschstrasse, a short cul-de-sac with four houses. In aerial-view mode he could clearly make out each roof.
14
A smell of pig farms and tar: Kolbhausen lay beyond one of the city’s eastern hills, with poor transport links and no view of the lake. Schwarzkirschstrasse was part of a small 1960s development of detached houses, surrounded by industrial agriculture, with a small canning factory and a workshop for farm machinery.
Herr Arnold stopped in front of one of the four steep-gabled houses, with espaliered apple trees and hideous garages built at various times over the past fifty years.
It wasn’t hard to find the house he was looking for. At the entrance to the second hung an @ symbol instead of a house number. Allmen opened the rusty garden gate. A gravel path led through the overgrown garden to the front door. Above the bell it said “Ernst Neuenhauser.” He pressed it. From inside the house came the sound of a roaring lion.
Allmen jumped and stepped back. Nothing happened. Silence except for the rapid dripping of a faucet next to the door, a green plastic bucket overflowing beneath it.
He rang again. Again the roaring lion. Again, nothing happened.
Allmen walked around the house. Most of the garden was filled with abandoned vegetable beds, bolted lettuce, empty beanpoles and tomato supports, overgrown paths between the beds, a collapsing water tank, and a battered, coiled hose in the midst of flourishing nettles.
Three steps led up to the house. The door, which was ajar, had a window with a wrought-iron grill. To the left of it was another window, with a large, empty flower box. Behind it closed curtains. No sign of life.
But just as Allmen was about to look elsewhere, he caught a movement. As if someone had pulled the curtain aside briefly and let it fall again.
Allmen walked toward the three steps, paused for a moment, then climbed them. At the half-open door he stopped. He could hear music, a Volksmusik classic.
“Hello?” he called. “Anyone home?” And when he got no reaction, louder: “Excuse me. I’m looking for Herr Neuenhauser!”
It stank of food, cigarettes, and sweat. Allmen stuck his head inside. He saw into a darkened room filled with indescribable chaos. Clothes, grocery bags, pizza boxes, dirty dishes, empty 1.5 liter soda bottles, and iced tea cartons.
Allmen called out again. “Anyone there?” He went inside.
Behind the door he now saw a series of plastic rectangles, probably computer-related. Perhaps this was what servers looked like. Next to them, on an enormous office chair, a very fat, youngish man was facing a row of screens. He didn’t seem to have noticed Allmen.
“Grüezi,” Allmen said. Then he said it again, louder, “Grüezi, Herr Neuenhauser.”
Now the man turned his head and looked at him, suspiciously. “What do you want?”
“Excuse me for barging in like this.”
“What do you want?” Neuenhauser was wearing a t-shirt with the slogan, “World Congress on IT 2008.” It accentuated every one of his bulges.
“Do you have a moment?”
“No. What do you want?”
“It’s about a friend.”
Neuenhauser took something colorful out of a cellophane bag, put it in his mouth, and began chewing, as if it were an onerous task.
“I’ve been trying to contact him for days. Till recently he had a domain registered here. I thought you might be able to help me.”
“Are you from the police?”
“No.”
“Then I can’t help you.”
“I understand.” Allmen gazed at the large man in silence till he turned his head away.
“What’s his name then?”
“Sokolov. Artyom Sokolov.”
The man nodded, as if that was exactly what he had expected.
Allmen kept going. “His domain was …” Allmen consulted his stenography notebook. “phinnkka.com.”
Neuenhauser stood up. It was as if his bulky body only followed his nimble movements reluctantly, delayed by fractions of a second.
He walked toward the door. For a moment Allmen thought he was going to leave the room. Then he came back, took the cellophane bag from the desk, and sat on a sagging sofa bed in front of a large TV, the only seat in the room apart from the office chair.
Neuenhauser’s face was white and covered in sweat. Allmen wasn’t sure if it had been like that before. Had he failed to notice due to the poor lighting by the computers? It was a while before Neuenhauser said anything. “I can’t help you. Even if I wanted to.”
Allmen sensed an explanation was coming. He waited.
Neuenhauser pointed behind him, without making the effort to turn. “You see the gap under the table there?”
Allmen nodded. In the row of servers, one was missing.
“That was the server with Sokolov’s domain on it.”
“Where is it now?”
“A few days ago two men came here, English. They wanted to know the same as you. And when I refused to tell them they got rough. I told them the data had been wiped, but they wanted to know which server it was on. And they took it. I guess they want to try and restore it, but they won’t succeed. I erase my data securely.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police?”
Neuenhauser hesitated, then finally said, “I don’t want any trouble. I’m not actually responsible for the content of the websites; I just provide the infrastructure. But still, no trouble. You know?”
Allmen knew.
“The very next day two Americans came and asked the same question. I told them about the other two and they left straightaway.” Neuenhauser crackled around in his cellophane bag of colorful objects.
“When did you last hear from Sokolov?” Allmen asked.
“That same day, soon after the Americans were here, he called. He wanted to know if I had wiped the data completely. I told him about the two visits.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing. Just hung up.”
“And when was that, roughly?”
“I couldn’t say roughly. But I can tell you precisely: July ninth.”
Allmen only realized now that he was breathing through his mouth to avoid the smell of sweat. “Thank you. And all the best.” He turned toward the door. Then he thought of something. “Have you got his number?”
“Yes.”
Allmen looked at him till at last he extracted a cellphone from his pants pocket and read out a number.
As soon as Allmen was sat in the back seat of the Cadillac, he called the number.
It was no longer available.
15
They were sitting in the library. Steady summer rain fell on the glass roof. Through one of the open vents they could hear the water splashing from a downspout onto the gravel. Carlos had listened attentively to Allmen’s description. Now he said, “You should ask Señor Montgomery about the Englishmen and the gringos.”
Allmen nodded. He took his phone, lying on the coffee table, and dialed. Carlos watched as Allmen waited, then left a voicemail, asking to be called back, “urgently, please.”
He put the telephone down and looked at Carlos. “Who can they be?”
“Professionals,” Carlos said. “Do you think they’ll find anything on the server?”
Allmen sighed. “They’re always one step ahead of us.”
“Not entirely. We know about the house. And we know Maria Moreno.”
“That hasn’t gotten us very far.”
“But they’re our best clues. We have to start t
here.”
The phone rang. Allmen answered. It was Montgomery. “What’s so urgent?” was his first question.
“Have you hired other investigators?” Allmen asked.
“No. Why do you ask?”
“Because we aren’t the only people looking for Sokolov.”
Montgomery was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I hope you are the only ones who find him.” And hung up.
Allmen looked at the phone in surprise and placed it back on the table.
“Qué dice?” Carlos asked.
“No,” Allmen replied. “He hasn’t hired anyone else.”
The rain tapped incessantly on the glass roof.
“Don John?”
“Hm?”
“Do you believe him?”
“Should I?”
Carlos thought about it. “I don’t know. I’d prefer it if he were lying.”
Allmen nodded. “If they were working for him we needn’t be as afraid of them.”
“Ojalá,” Carlos said—let’s hope so.
“And now? What next?”
“Maria Moreno.”
16
Maria Moreno was six inches taller than Carlos, and still a short woman. She wore cherry-red lipstick and emphasized the almond shape of her black eyes with powerful eyeliner. When she laughed, a row of snow-white teeth were revealed. But Carlos was granted this pleasure only later.
They had arranged to meet in the restaurant at Kakadu, the department store. At three in the afternoon it was empty except for a handful of pensioners exchanging gossip over coffee and cakes, and a few saleswomen taking a late lunch.
Carlos had called Maria straight after his briefing with Allmen, and introduced himself as Señor von Allmen’s assistant. He wanted to discuss the details of a potential position, he said.
She was already there when he arrived, also early. He hadn’t identified her at first. From the details Allmen had noted he knew that Maria Moreno was thirty-two, but the only Latina around that age in the Kakadu restaurant looked too pretty for an illegal Colombian cleaning lady, as he imagined. It took over ten minutes, and an increasing amount of eye contact, till Carlos walked over to her table, embarrassed, to ask if she might be Maria Moreno.