After weaving their way around the city, Teschmaker watched as Jane made a second trip down Raddle Avenue. This time, however, she appeared to be dawdling, looking for something; then, with a sudden burst of acceleration, she cut through a gap in the traffic and shot down the ramp into the Empire Hotel car park. Her strategy, if it had been such, worked perfectly. Teschmaker, in the wrong lane and three cars behind, had no chance of replicating her manoeuvre and was forced to drive past. Fortunately there was a parking space half a block on but it was a good five minutes before he was able to walk down into the car park. There was no sign of Jane’s Saab. He saw immediately that he had been outwitted. The car park entrance was on Raddle Avenue but the exit lane came out a block over on Hepburn Avenue. Jane had simply driven in and straight out the other side. Deciding to cut his losses, Teschmaker took the elevator up to the lobby and climbed the flight of stairs to the nearest restaurant.
An hour later, though not happy at his lack of progress in keeping tabs on Jane, Teschmaker had at least managed to have an early lunch. He returned to his car, removed the parking ticket from under the wipers and drove home. All in all, he thought later as he poured himself a scotch, the day had not been a complete waste of time. He had established that Jane was being followed by someone associated with the Romanian Embassy, and that Jane was probably aware of it and, when it mattered, took great pains to evade him. It was probably some clash of commercial interests, Teschmaker surmised. Maybe her business had stepped on someone’s toes somewhere along the line. Anyway, it was enough to sustain his interest and tomorrow he decided he would do the whole thing again.
For the next three days Teschmaker followed Jane’s movements but not once did he spot anyone following her and she did nothing more than go between work and home. Whatever reason the car from the Romanian Embassy had for following her, apparently it no longer existed. By Friday Teschmaker was ready to give the whole thing away, except for the fact that he couldn’t get her angry attack on him out of his mind. Her accusation that he had ruined her life and then hanging up with no explanation riled him. He followed her to work, got a space outside the coffee bar, parked, found himself a table and ordered a strong latte.
Maybe he should just walk up to her and demand an apology. Or write her a letter and ask her to explain. Stay away from me or I’ll kill you. That was just plain stupid. The one thing he was now certain of was that he wasn’t going to drop the matter. She had stained him and he would rub away at it until there was no trace of it remaining.
Teschmaker’s musings were cut short by Jane’s reappearance in the car park across the road. She emerged blinking into the sunlight and stood a moment, checking the street as though aware that there were times when she was followed. Or was he reading his own knowledge into the situation? He watched as her gaze took in the cars parked outside the coffee bar, but if she recognised his dark blue BMW she gave no sign. Teschmaker slipped five dollars under his coffee glass and moved quickly back to his car. To his surprise Jane was not walking towards her Saab but to an older VW Golf parked at the rear of the lot. He waited until she was almost at the end of Angus Street before he followed.
It had not occurred to Teschmaker that she might switch cars and even now he was uncertain if this was a deliberate ploy or had some less devious explanation. Maybe she had done the same on other days and he had missed her. Maybe — the thought suddenly struck him — the Romanian had also used more than one vehicle. No, he consoled himself, he was getting far too paranoid and totally without reason. But he checked the rear-vision mirrors. There were several cars behind him, none of them a black Ford. However, erring on the side of caution, he made a mental note: a cream-coloured delivery van, a beaten-up Mitsubishi Magna and, quite a long way back, a compact late-model maroon Mercedes and a couple of taxis. He switched his attention back to Jane. The Golf was a diesel version and fortunately had less acceleration than her Saab, but she was driving as she had several mornings earlier, switching lanes and taking a very circuitous route to her destination.
Teschmaker checked behind him again and was relieved to see that none of the cars behind him appeared to be the same: a taxi, a Toyota Landcruiser and an old Renault. There was a lot of traffic now and he concentrated on Jane. He realised that, with a few variations, she was going through the same routine as before and so he decided to take a risk. As they approached Raddle Avenue he peeled off to the right, heading for Hepburn. It was probable, he reasoned, that she would use the Empire Hotel car park in the same manner she had three days previously and so he threaded his way through the mid-morning traffic and double-parked opposite the hotel exit. Just as he was beginning to think he had jumped to the wrong conclusion, the VW Golf appeared out of the car park and headed north. ‘Gotcha!’ he said out loud.
Confident she had lost any tail, Jane drove the full length of Hepburn at a more relaxed pace. From there she took the Ring Road, joined the Mitchell Freeway and then, to Teschmaker’s surprise, took the Claymont exit onto the Airport Freeway. Maybe she was going to meet somebody. But that didn’t explain the change of cars. You don’t change to a down-market vehicle to pick up a visitor off a plane.
Jane sailed past the airport exit and headed for the country. At least I was right about that, he congratulated himself.
Beyond the airport the traffic was very thin and Teschmaker dropped well back giving her plenty of space, only speeding up when she vanished around a corner. Within twenty minutes they were beyond the city, cruising at eighty kilometres an hour along a slowly winding country road. A pick-up truck with bales of fresh lucerne in the rear overtook him, but given the long stretches of road it was not a problem. Teschmaker would have no difficulty spotting the Golf if it turned off the main road as the side roads were invariably crossroads running in a straight line to left and right. And they were all unsealed so, given the recent dry weather, he would easily see the dust trail behind her car.
Thirty minutes later the car and truck in front of him slowed down as they drove straight through the tiny village of Daleborough and on towards Landsbury Crossing. Teschmaker glanced at the fuel gauge and was relieved to see that he still had more than half a tank. He had not anticipated such a trip and he just hoped that wherever Jane was going it was not much further. He didn’t have long to wait. A couple of kilometres past Daleborough the road started to wind up the Landsbury Valley, giving him beautiful views over the patchwork quilt of the plains below. Fields of green, brown and the occasional yellow of sunflowers or rape flowed away as far as the eye could see. Ahead of him the pick-up signalled and then turned off down a dirt road, leaving only him and Jane on the road. A couple of minutes later he climbed around a corner and saw her stopped at a gate. It was too late to do anything so he drove by, relieved that she was too busy with a padlock even to glance in his direction.
Around the next corner Teschmaker pulled to the side of the road and waited. Give her a couple of minutes, he thought, then drive past and have a look. There was obviously no way he could go in but he was intrigued by her destination. He had always seen her as a city girl. Sure, she had been a social skier and probably done a bit of bushwalking, but a hobby farmer? No, that wasn’t Jane. But then the thought occurred to him that maybe she had a lover living here.
As he drove back he slowed down to a crawl, allowing himself a good look at the property. Set well back from the road, protected by a steel gate and dry-rock wall, was a two-storey stone house surrounded by large trees. The place, if the grounds were any indication, was extremely run down: long grass had already gone to seed, dead branches lay where they had fallen and the house looked as though none of the shutters had been opened in years. It had all the attributes of an abandoned dwelling. To the left of the gate was a makeshift letterbox constructed from a plastic pesticide container cut in half through the middle. It was full of leaves. Underneath hung a sign: Gormenghast RMS 143. Teschmaker wondered how long it had been since the Rural Mail Service had delivered anything here, and what kin
d of person would name a house Gormenghast.
Jane obviously wanted to deter any casual visitors for she had not only closed the gate but re-fastened it with the padlock. It seemed a strange thing to do if her behaviour was above board. He couldn’t imagine any of the local farmers bothering with such locks. From the road, the dry-stone walls ran back along either side of the front paddock which, he guessed, must have been almost two acres in size. To one side an old shed leaned precariously, its slow fall halted by the trunk of a large elm. Behind it he could just make out the rear of Jane’s car. Why, he wondered, did she feel the need to disguise her presence? The weed-covered driveway led to a turning circle directly in front of the house. Why not park there?
Convinced that he could learn nothing further he drove back to the city, stopping for a moment in Daleborough where he posted the envelope containing the single piece of the old jigsaw puzzle. Today, he told himself, I made progress.
Later he kicked himself for not having recognised the two cars parked opposite his house as he arrived home: a Landcruiser and a compact maroon Mercedes. But at the time his mind had been on other things. On the drive back to the city, in a welcome break from his preoccupation with Jane, his thoughts had gone back to his first meeting with Bela Manolescu.
It was his very first assignment just over twenty-two years earlier. In reality an insurance claim of such magnitude should have been handled by a more senior investigator. But the New York manager of General Insurance International, sensing an opportunity for a weekend away with his mistress, had insisted that Teschmaker would have no trouble with the case.
‘It’s one of the open and shut variety,’ the manager smiled. ‘Open the chequebook and shut the case.’
He paused to make sure that Teschmaker had time to enjoy his little joke. Teschmaker smiled diplomatically.
‘Mr Manolescu,’ the manager continued, ‘is a very valued client so don’t ruffle any feathers. Go through the forms and pay him the $80,000.’
‘Sure,’ Teschmaker replied. ‘I’ll do the paperwork, issue the cheque and have my report on your desk by Monday morning.’
He watched as the manager drove off to tell his wife that he was unfortunately going to be out of town all weekend. ‘Sorry honey, something big has come up.’
Later that afternoon Teschmaker checked the address on the Lower East Side and took a cab. At first glance the brownstone apartment looked pretty run of the mill. Nothing fancy. It didn’t reek of ostentation and wealth. Then Teschmaker’s eye caught sight of the grilles over the windows — not just the ground floor but also the first and second. That was more like it. The claimant styled himself as an ‘art connoisseur’ though nowhere in the documentation could Teschmaker see any indication of the man’s profession. He must be one of those termed ‘independently wealthy’, Teschmaker supposed.
The man who greeted Teschmaker at the door was enormous. He was also naked, except for a sarong that was struggling to contain his waist. Bela Manolescu’s round face was hung with huge jowls of fat that wobbled around his chin and neck. He took Teschmaker’s hand limply in his; Teschmaker extricated his hand as quickly as possible and handed the man his business card.
‘Mr Martin Teschmaker. A pleasure. A divine pleasure,’ Manolescu murmured. ‘Shoes off, if you don’t mind.’ He indicated the row of shoes and sandals that lay in a neat row to the left of the door. ‘Some slippers for Mr Teschmaker, please, Raymond,’ he called and immediately a young Asian boy appeared carrying a pair of white slippers. ‘Quickly! We don’t want his toes to catch cold.’
As Teschmaker leaned over to untie his laces he was very conscious of the two men watching him. Raymond, also dressed only in a sarong, knelt down and, despite Teschmaker’s protestations that he could do it himself, eased Teschmaker’s feet delicately into the slippers.
‘Much better,’ Manolescu beamed and, giving Raymond a friendly pat on the bum, sent him scurrying off to fetch refreshments. ‘Vodka tonics and something to nibble,’ he instructed.
In an overly familiar gesture he took Teschmaker’s arm and led him from the hall into a large marble-floored sunroom. The room faced onto an interior courtyard, bereft of direct sunlight but fitted out with a spa and a large couch above which was an array of sun lamps. Teschmaker glanced at the rolls of flesh that circled Manolescu’s girth but could see no sign that they had ever been anything but white. The vast expanse of flesh was pallid and unhealthy, the only suggestion of colour coming from the discoloration caused by the veins that struggled to move blood around his protruding belly. Maybe the solar lamps were strictly for his guests.
‘A tragedy of immense proportions,’ Manolescu sighed as he guided Teschmaker towards a leather armchair. He released his arm and moved around a small coffee table to lower himself, breathing heavily, into a sturdy chair that looked as though it had been custom-built to encompass and support the man’s huge form. As he sank down he allowed the sarong to fall open, displaying, with no sense of embarrassment, huge thighs and calves striped with the purple of varicose veins.
‘The loss of the painting?’
‘It is like losing a beloved child. For a German, Matthias Zywitza’s work is so tender you can almost feel the brush strokes. So painterly. And such a rare sense of light.’
‘I’m afraid I’m not familiar with his work, but I understand how painful it must be to lose a treasured possession.’
‘Do you, Martin? The sense of loss was debilitating. For days I looked at the empty space on the wall, expecting that at any moment the painting would materialise.’ He allowed his head to roll back to the chair’s headrest and for a moment stared at the ceiling. Then he snapped his head down and looked Teschmaker directly in the eye. ‘I hope you don’t mind if I call you Martin?’
Teschmaker didn’t like it but, remembering his manager’s words about Manolescu being a valued client, shrugged in a noncommittal manner. There was something in the way Manolescu looked at him that made him feel decidedly uncomfortable, like a child in the presence of a paedophile. But he suppressed his reaction. Fortunately the awkwardness of the moment was cut short by the return of Raymond carrying a tray of drinks and some wafer-thin biscuits topped with caviar. The young man moved a photo album to one side to put the tray on the table and handed Teschmaker his drink. He then sat at Manolescu’s feet and proceeded to pass him the biscuits one by one.
It was such a strange sight, Teschmaker thought: the slightly built Asian man, not much more than a boy really, sitting beside those enormous feet, swollen ankles and bulging thighs. Manolescu sipped his drink and with his other hand casually stroked Raymond’s neck as though he were a lap dog or the house cat.
‘I’ll need you to sign some papers, I’m afraid,’ Teschmaker said, placing his drink on the table and swinging his briefcase up onto his knees. ‘And I’m required to ask a few questions.’
‘Of course, dear boy. Ask away.’
Manolescu passed his drink back to Raymond and pointed at the biscuits. ‘For our guest! You are forgetting yourself!’
To Teschmaker’s amazement he hit the young man a stinging blow across the face. Raymond blushed, got to his feet, picked up the plate of biscuits and offered them to him. Feeling under some obligation, Teschmaker took one and mumbled his thanks.
For several minutes Teschmaker went through the routine questions about the break-in and the theft, then sat back and took another sip of his drink. ‘Well,’ he said with a manufactured smile, ‘everything appears to be in order. All I need now is a copy of the police report and the receipt from your original purchase.’
‘Certainly.’ Manolescu prodded Raymond to his feet and indicated he should help him from the chair. ‘I’ll get them from my study. Can I get Raymond to freshen up your vodka?’
‘No.’ Teschmaker shook his head. ‘I’ll be fine.’
As Raymond assisted the lumbering Manolescu from the room, Teschmaker drained the last of his drink. Putting his briefcase to one side, he picked up the photo alb
um and flipped through it. There is nothing quite as boring as another person’s collection of happy snaps, he thought. But he was wrong. The pictures were anything but innocuous snaps. The album was a detailed record of Manolescu’s sexual exploits with a number of younger men. Raymond featured in a majority of them, sometimes alone, sometimes in conjunction — if that was the right word — with other men. Despite his bulk, Manolescu appeared to be reasonably agile in pursuit of his sexual goals. The photos were not of a particularly high quality and had been taken with a camera that date-stamped every photo. One in particular intrigued Teschmaker. It showed Manolescu standing beside Raymond, proudly displaying the front page of a foreign-language newspaper carrying the big man’s smiling photograph. The headline was not clear enough to be read, but Teschmaker guessed that the picture had been taken in Romania where Manolescu reportedly kept a palatial home somewhere outside the Transylvanian city of Braşov. Was it Sibiu? Teschmaker had read it in the file but couldn’t immediately recall the name. If Teschmaker had harboured any doubt about Manolescu’s vile character the picture put paid to it. The man was not only a lecherous sodomite who preyed on young boys, he was — if the date stamp on the photo was anything to go by — also a liar and swindler.
Based on the date of the photograph and what it revealed, the logical thing would have been to reject Manolescu’s insurance claim and hand him over to the police. But that would have been too easy. It was probable that the police could get a conviction, but only for the insurance matter. Checking that Manolescu was not on his way back into the room, Teschmaker slipped the picture from the album and into his briefcase. It may take a long time but Teschmaker knew with certainty that justice would eventually be served.
It was eighteen months before Teschmaker was able to take time off from an investigation he was conducting in Hungary to visit Romania. When the opportunity presented itself he set aside a week to locate Manolescu’s Transylvanian home-away-from-home. It turned out to be a relatively simple task as every pretty boy for miles around Braşov knew of Manolescu and his exploits. He found the mansion — not in the pretty town of Sibiu with its cobbled streets and pastel-coloured houses but in Sighisoara, one of the greatest medieval cities left in the world, complete with a walled citadel on the hilltop, secret gateways and passages and a fourteenth-century clock tower. Ironically Manolescu’s house was also in the place where Prince Vlad Tepes was born — the man upon whom the character of Dracula was modelled.
Delicate Indecencies Page 13