The Rocket Man

by Maggie Hamand

  ALSO BY MAGGIE HAMAND

  The Resurrection of the Body

  Doctor Gavrilov

  In memory of Gamini Seneviratne

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to thank all those people in London, Vienna and Paraguay who helped me in my researches, and those whose continued belief in this book sustained me through the long struggle for publication. I must also thank my family and above all my husband Jeremy, who alone knows how many tears I have shed over this book.

  First published in the United Kingdom by Images Publishing (Malvern) Ltd, 1995

  This revised ebook edition published by CCWC, 2014

  All rights reserved, © Maggie Hamand 2014

  The right of Maggie Hamand to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Cover image © Kentannenbaum | Dreamstime.com

  eBook edition ISBN 978-0-957694-44-6

  CONTENTS

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  PART ONE

  VIENNA, 1991

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  PART TWO

  SOUTH AMERICA, 1991

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  EPILOGUE

  PART ONE

  VIENNA, 1991

  I

  When Hans Müller committed suicide one cold Sunday in January nobody could understand why he had done it, least of all his wife, Lieselotte. Katie Haynes had spent hours holding the distraught woman in her arms, listening to her howling over and over, ‘Why did he do this? Why? Why?’ To this neither Katie, the police, nor Müller’s UN colleagues could provide an answer.

  The funeral was held the following week in the Vienna Central Cemetery. Lieselotte stood at the graveside, clothed in black and veiled, her hands clasped, standing as still as if frozen by the icy wind. At Lieselotte’s side, her sister held the Müllers’ six-month-old baby. A sombre crowd stood behind them, and all around stretched the endless long avenues of gravestones, the bare trees, and the wide paths sprinkled with dirty snow.

  Katie looked at her nervously from across the empty grave, holding her own daughter’s hand, watching the men prepare to lower the coffin, afraid that her friend might break down completely, or make some desperate gesture. Katie wondered for a moment how she would feel if it were her own husband Bob who was being buried, but she could feel nothing; either her imagination was wanting, or the idea failed to move her. She pushed this thought to the back of her mind, not wanting to admit that Lieselotte grieved her husband’s death with a depth that she could not match.

  Men lifted the coffin with ropes and manoeuvred it towards the grave. Katie instinctively drew backwards, pulling Anna with her, though the little girl didn’t seem at all upset, just wide-eyed, curious. Icy raindrops suddenly began to fall from the heavy sky. To Katie’s left, a man tapped her arm to attract her attention and held an umbrella over her head. Katie, surprised, glanced up at him; he looked at her quite solemnly and didn’t smile. He was wearing a shapeless dark overcoat, a man in his mid- forties, she would guess, with an unusual face, a face you would not easily forget with its strong and mismatched features; a craggy nose, a mouth that was too large, cool blue-grey eyes, and dark hair, just starting to recede in front, exposing the high forehead. He held a fur hat, and it was this, together with his high cheekbones, that made her think he was almost certainly a Russian.

  It was very cold; the wind blew in gusts against them, and the trees suddenly tipped down showers of water. Anna tugged at Katie’s sleeve and said that she wanted to go home; Katie gathered her under her coat. The priest, seeming anxious to finish, hurried through the service, but the men were struggling with the coffin, the ropes and the earth slippery with the rain. Water ran off the side of the umbrella and soaked Katie’s shoulder, so she leaned closer to the stranger beside her, and he offered her his arm to lean on. Despite his size he did not seem solid, but tense and taut, full of suppressed energy. Without being aware that she was doing it, she gradually leaned closer to him, till the whole of her side touched his through their thick coats.

  When the earth was thrown onto the coffin she shuddered, and to her horror found that tears were running down her face. She hoped the man wouldn’t notice; but he had. He pulled off his thick glove, reached into a pocket, and pulled out a clean white handkerchief which he offered her; she was surprised at the pale hand which emerged from the bulky sleeve, so large and yet unthreatening. She took the handkerchief, smiled at him politely through her tears, and let go of his arm.

  When the burial was over, just as they were all turning away, Lieselotte stepped forward and gently tossed a single red rose into the grave.

  Everyone was anxious to get away quickly because of the rain, which continued to fall in an icy, drenching stream. Katie went over to her friend, took her hand and squeezed it, but Lieselotte seemed in another world, and turned away, distracted, leaning on her sister. Katie stood for a moment with Anna, lost and disoriented. She looked around for anyone she knew and saw the Russian – if that’s what he was – standing on his own under his umbrella, lighting a cigarette. She glanced at him once or twice and noticed that he hardly took his eyes off her.

  Lieselotte went on ahead; Katie followed more slowly, with Anna. They walked down the long avenue between the trees, past some mounds of earth from freshly dug graves, covered over with large sprays of evergreen foliage and topped with fading flowers. Anna stared at everything, fascinated. To one side a woman in an Austrian hat with a bitter, much-lined face swept the sodden path with her broom.

  As they walked along the path, she realised that the man with the umbrella was walking beside her. Smoke from his cigarette drifted across her face.

  ‘Do you know Müller’s wife?’ he asked her. He spoke English in a smooth, deep voice, and with a definite Russian accent.

  ‘Yes, she’s a good friend of mine.’

  ‘How is she taking this?’

  ‘It’s terrible for her, she can’t understand. Nobody can understand. Why did he do it? When they just had the baby… Why?’

  He did not reply at once; in fact, she thought he wouldn’t reply at all. Then he said, very softly, ‘I think perhaps you are asking the wrong question.’

  She looked at him, startled, but he looked away. A moment later he excused himself and walked back along the path. She was left feeling puzzled, perturbed; she didn’t have the slightest idea what he meant.

  After the funeral Katie drove straight to the airport to meet Bob. Like Hans, he worked for the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, and despite a recent promotion he still travelled extensively. Katie had been longing for him to come back, having had to deal with Lieselotte’s grief unsupported. She hated his long absences and had more than once urged him to pack the job in. His contract was coming up for renewal again at the end of the year, and she had told him she couldn’t face another three years in Vienna, isolated from her family and friends, and unable to find any satisfying work. But where to go was
a problem; Bob was American, and she was English, and neither of them was keen to settle in one another’s countries.

  They waited at the arrivals barrier, Anna jumping up and down with excitement. Bob had missed her fifth birthday, and she was expecting a present. Katie scanned the crowd but it was Anna who saw him first; she ducked under the barrier and ran towards him, shouting, ‘Daddy! Daddy!’, jumping up at him so eagerly that he put his suitcase down and swept her up in his arms. Her face was bright and flushed as she hugged him, and he kissed her, saying, ‘Well, how’s my little princess? Are you five now, huh? Let me look at you.’ Katie had to wait till he had given Anna her birthday present before she was able to kiss his cheek.

  Despite travelling all night he looked quite unruffled, his clothes uncrumpled, his face close-shaven, and his hair neatly combed back from his forehead. Although she had looked forward so much to his return, her first emotion was of irritation at his composure. They walked off towards the car.

  ‘Everything okay? Give me a real kiss.’

  She kissed him again, on the mouth this time.

  As they crossed the arrivals hall, she said, in a quiet voice, ‘Bob, did you hear about Hans?’

  Bob went on walking. He said, ‘Yes, I did hear. It’s tragic, shocking.’ Anna skipped on ahead, oblivious; Katie had to call her back. Bob started to talk but an airport announcement drowned out what he was saying.

  ‘Bob, slow down.’ She grabbed his free hand, he squeezed it and began walking more slowly. Katie showed him where she had parked their car and he loaded the suitcase into the boot. She said, ‘You must be tired. Do you want me to drive?’

  ‘No, I’m fine.’ But he seemed tense and preoccupied, and, when Anna was strapped in, he let her climb into the driving seat. On the autobahn, while Anna ecstatically played with the doll he had bought her, he asked, ‘What happened with Hans exactly?’

  ‘She’d gone out for a lunch with friends and then for a walk in the Vienna Woods. It was a week ago last Sunday. Hans said she should have a day off, she hadn’t left Jochum since he was born, so she left him with Hans. When she got back he was dead and Jochum was crying in the cot.’

  ‘Did he leave a note?’

  ‘Yes, but it didn’t say why. Just that he couldn’t live with himself any longer and that he knew they would be happier without him. He said his affairs were in order and his will was with his lawyer.’ Katie hesitated. ‘He said that he loved them but that was the only thing that was at all personal.’

  ‘And the police are happy with this?’

  ‘I think so. I don’t think there’s any doubt that it was suicide.’ Katie’s voice trembled for a moment. ‘But Lieselotte doesn’t understand why. They seemed perfectly happy at home, with the baby, and everything. He wasn’t that depressed, he hadn’t threatened it or anything.’

  ‘People who really mean to kill themselves rarely do.’

  ‘She thought it might be something to do with work. It couldn’t be, could it, Bob?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. But I suppose we’ll have to go through all that. Maybe I’d better go straight into the office.’

  ‘Oh Bob, please don’t do that. Surely it can wait till tomorrow. Anna would be terribly disappointed.’

  He turned round to Anna and smiled. He said, softly, ‘Okay.’ Anna was the key to his heart; he would do almost anything for her. Katie looked ahead, concentrating on her driving. She said, ‘It’s all been rather difficult. I was lonely, without you.’

  Bob patted her thigh. ‘Well, I’m back now.’

  When they got home Bob had a shower and Katie made some lunch. Bob came up behind her in the kitchen, towelling his hair.

  ‘Was there anything in the papers?’

  ‘About Hans? No, I’m sure there wasn’t.’

  ‘I’d better call Lascalles.’ He went back into the bedroom. Through the open door she could see him on the phone, fiddling with the telephone cord. Katie felt irritated. His work always came first; she shouldn’t have expected anything different. She let him talk for ten minutes and then went to the door to mime that lunch was ready. Bob smiled at her and held up his hand to ask her not to interrupt.

  She could hear snatches of the conversation. ‘I really don’t think I have anything that will shed any light on it. No, I don’t. I can’t understand it. No, everything was just fine. Yes, it was unfortunate about Gavrilov but then I did warn you about that when it was first suggested… No. No other problems that I know of. Hans seemed quite happy about it. Have you written to Cruz? I see. No – tomorrow at eleven will be fine. Yes, of course. See you then. Okay.’

  He hung up but remained seated on the bed. He looked suddenly overwhelmingly weary. Katie went up to him and put her arm on his shoulder and he looked up at her. Only then did he ask the question which she might have expected from him first: ‘And how is Lieselotte?’

  The next morning, when Bob had left for work, Katie went into the city centre to meet her friend Nihal Senanayake for their regular Tuesday coffee. The weather had turned milder and it was still raining, and as Katie walked down the hushed, pedestrianised streets near the Stephansdom a lone street musician played a mournful, haunting tune on a flute. Katie felt herself overwhelmed for an instant with that particular melancholy of the expatriate, a feeling of being always isolated and detached, living in a culture she didn’t belong to despite her fluency in the language; an outsider, an observer, mixing mainly with a population of transient foreigners. As the daughter of a diplomat, she knew this rootless existence only too well, and by now it had lost its appeal.

  She wandered down the Graben, looking into the shop windows, passing the time till they were due to meet at eleven. She settled herself in a corner at Hawelka’s and they brought her coffee with a glass of water on a silver tray. Nihal, as usual, was late. She saw him at last through the window; he was unmistakable, his short, dark figure advancing out of the rain. He fumbled with the door and hung his coat and umbrella on the hut-stand. Slightly out of breath, he sat down opposite her, putting his newspaper and a sheaf of documents on the table.

  He ran his hand through his damp hair, realigning the broad white streak which he considered very distinguished, and smiled broadly. Katie silently accepted that he knew her too well to feel he had to apologise for his customary lateness. Then he pulled a face.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘My shoes leak, and my socks are wet.’

  ‘Why don’t you buy a new pair?’

  Nihal looked sheepish. Katie knew that he was always short of money; as a freelance journalist his income was erratic, Vienna was an expensive place to live, and she knew he sent a lot of money home to his ex-wife and children in England. Nihal was, like her, a Cambridge graduate, one of those highly educated Sri Lankans who seem more English than the English; Katie always felt at home with him. Their friendship went back a long way, to the days they both worked at the BBC World Service in London. Katie had relied on him heavily when she first came to Vienna; he knew everyone and everything. She met him once a week to exchange gossip; today, as she had anticipated, he wanted to know about the suicide.

  ‘How was the funeral?’

  ‘Miserable.’ Katie didn’t want to go into too many details; Nihal, of course, was always looking for a possible story, and she knew that he would view anything she said principally for its news potential; she didn’t hold this against him, after all, journalists are like that. The waiter came and they both ordered coffee. Katie sipped hers slowly, skimming the milk off the top with her spoon.

  ‘Nihal, at the graveside I was standing next to this Russian. At least I’m pretty sure he was a Russian.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Tall. Dark brown hair, thinning a bit. In his forties.’

  ‘Going grey?’

  ‘No. His English is very good, a deep voice.’

  ‘Tall? Over six foot?’

  ‘Oh yes, at least.’

  ‘It’s probably Dmitry Gavrilov. He was
with Müller on that last inspection in Brazil.’ Nihal lit up a cigarette. ‘I’m doing a piece on this new safeguards deal there, looking into all the background. No-one at the IAEA thinks his death has anything to do with that, do they?’

  Katie knew he asked her this in case Bob had said anything to her about it. She was instantly defensive.

  ‘Bob never talks to me about work, you know that. Anyhow, he’s been away.’

  Nihal asked, ‘And what does Lieselotte make of it all?’ As Katie didn’t answer, he tried again, ‘You’re a good friend – she must have said something to you – what does she think?’

  Katie drank the remains of her coffee. ‘Oh, I think she’s too shocked to think anything.’

  An awkward silence fell. Nihal extinguished his cigarette, staring at Katie and obviously wondering if it was prudent to push things any further. Abruptly he changed the subject. ‘Actually, since you mentioned him, I had a briefing with Gavrilov last week. He’s one of the new breed, you know; here because he’s good at his job and not just for political reasons… I found him very impressive.’

  Katie was staring out of the window. She was thinking of the coffin going into the ground, of how she had stood by the grave in the rain, of his intent face as he had looked at her, and the way he had offered her his arm to lean on.

  Nihal sat at his desk in the hallway of his small flat in the Tulpengasse. He inhaled deeply on his cigarette and watched the smoke drift up towards the ceiling, lit by an ancient Anglepoise lamp. He had not yet written the first sentence. That was always the most difficult; where to begin. Once he had got beyond that things usually started to flow.

  He tapped in the first sentence of his article.

  In September 1990 President Collor de Mello of Brazil publicly threw the first spadeful of lime into a 320-metre deep concrete lined shaft in Amazonia which the military had built to test a nuclear weapon, thus heralding the official end to Brazil’s nuclear weapons programme.