by Peter Temple
She joined Medecins Sans Frontieres. He went to college and she died in the Congo. His father said on the telephone that it was quick and painless, a fever, she lost consciousness. Some exotic viral infection, he couldn’t remember what it was called.
What did people mean when they said grown up?
Anselm rubbed his eyes, finished the whisky. He went to the big stone-flagged room off the laundry, the boxroom, floor-to-ceiling shelves. In the corner, stairs went down to the cellar. Frau Einspenner had taken him down those steep stairs, a little of the exquisite apprehension came back to him.
The cartons from San Francisco stood on the floor, only one opened.
His life before Beirut lay in the boxes. He felt no attachment to that life, no curiosity about the missing pieces of it. He should leave the material remains alone.
He began with the open carton.
50
…LONDON…
‘His name is Constantine Niemand. South African, an ex-soldier, a mercenary, worked as a security guard in Johannesburg. Two days before he arrived here, he was on the scene of an affair in Johannesburg, a burglary gone wrong, five people killed, three blacks, one a security guard, the other two…’ ‘Losin me, boy.’
‘A white couple were killed. Brett and Elizabeth Shawn, British passports.’
‘Your Krauts running that name?’
‘Yes.’
‘The woman, what’d you do there?’
‘There’s a watch on the place. She hasn’t shown.’
‘And the old address?’
‘The old address?’
‘Your reliable pricks heard the phone ring. Then he wasn’t there. Who the living fuck do you think called him? And how the fuck did she know to call him? Hasn’t crossed your brain has it? And don’t say in essence to me again, I’ll strangle you with my own hands.’
‘With respect, Mr Price, I’m not prepared…’ ‘Sonny, deal with me or deal with the devil. There’s much worse coming up behind me. I’m the good cop. You want to walk from this fucken Waco you created, get the fuck out. And wherever you go, get on your knees every morning noon and fucken night and pray the Lord to take away the mark on your fucken forehead.’
‘We’ll cover this stuff, Charlie.’
‘I truly hope so, Martie. I truly do. Or we’re talking missing in action.’
51
…HAMBURG…
It was in the second carton. In the top box.
A flimsy magazine with a sombre cover of light grey type on a black background.
Behind Enemy Lines. A Journal of Argument.
February 1993.
Four articles were promoted on the cover. The top one was: ‘And Unquiet Lie the Civil Dead’.
Anselm took the magazine to the study and sat behind the desk to read it.
From the first words, he knew that he had not written it. No matter how battered the brain, there was something in it that knew what it had created, and he had not created this. It was vaguely familiar but it wasn’t his.
He found what the woman was talking about, the village in Angola.
Fragments of evidence now suggest that this campaign was in response to rumours in South Africa of a village in northern Angola being wiped out.
Wiped out by which side? How? We don’t know. But just in case the rumours spread outside South Africa and were investigated and confirmed, the CIA-DIA misinformation artists had done the groundwork for blaming the Cubans.
Nothing. It meant nothing. Why had someone told Caroline Wishart that he had been paid for writing the article? And given her his San Francisco address as the place the cheque was sent to?
He paged through the rest of the magazine. On the last page was an offer for back issues of the magazines and three others:
The Social Fabric
Records of Capitalism
To Bear Witness
To Bear Witness
That was it, he knew the name, that was how he knew Bob Blumenthal. He pictured his face again. A cafe in San Francisco. In the afternoon. Long ago.
Anselm was looking for a cigarette when it came to him: he had written a piece for Blumenthal on the CIA and European intelligence services. That was what they talked about that day. In 1990. Blumenthal had rung him. Kaskis and Blumenthal went back a long way, Blumenthal had taught Kaskis at college after Kaskis left the army. Kaskis had written stuff for him.
Anselm thought about living in San Francisco, in Kaskis’ tiny apartment on the hill. Kaskis knew the people who owned the building, Latvians, friends of his family. Kaskis never spent more than a few days at a time in San Francisco. Anselm remembered him staying for a week once, that was the longest. They went out at night, went to bars where journalists hung out, drank a lot. Kaskis always had somewhere to go later. Someone he had to see before the night was over.
Anselm remembered the piece. It was published in To Bear Witness and it was called ‘American Spider: Global and Deadly’. It would be in the document boxes.
Why should he help this woman, this muckraker? Because he’d heard something in her voice. Perhaps it was a matter of someone’s life and death. He rang Inskip again, got connected to the London number. She was close to the phone. Was it a work number?
‘John Anselm,’ he said. ‘I found the article. A man called Paul Kaskis wrote it. He had the magazine pay me. He owed me money.’
A long sigh. ‘Paul Kaskis, do you…’
‘He’s dead.’
‘Oh. Shit. The name, I think I remember it, he was kidnapped with you…’
‘He was murdered in the Lebanon.’
Another sigh. ‘Well, thank you. I think I’m at the end of this road.
As a matter of interest, what was he doing in the Lebanon?’
‘He wanted to talk to an American soldier, an ex-soldier. A Lebanese-American.’
‘You wouldn’t remember his name?’
‘Diab. Joseph Diab.’
He hadn’t told Alex that. Why was he telling this woman?
‘Did you know what it was about?’
‘No. Paul never told you anything.’ Anselm’s eyes fell on the photograph albums on the bookshelf beside the door, three big leather-bound albums, he remembered looking at them when he was a child, Pauline pointing out people.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’d really appreciate being able to ring you if I get any further with this. Is that possible?’
Anselm hesitated. Then he gave her the W amp;K number. ‘Leave a message if I’m not there.’
He took the photograph albums from the study to the kitchen. He poured wine and opened an album. The pictures were in chronological order, little notes in ink under most of them identifying people by names and nicknames, giving places, dates, occasions. There was a photograph of Pauline and a young man sitting on the terrace. Fraulein Einspenner was standing behind them, the maid. She was young and beautiful. In the first album, the captions were in red ink. In the other two, they were in green, in Pauline’s hand.
There were pictures missing, taken out of their corners. The captions were crossed out and cross-hatched in green ink until they were illegible.
The phone rang again.
‘I feel I need company,’ Alex said. ‘I’ve had some news, I’m feeling a little…’
‘Come over,’ he said. ‘Can you do that?’
52
…VIRGINIA…
They walked in the day’s cold ending and stopped beside a pond, silver, sat on a wooden bench bleached white as bone by sun and rain and snow.
‘Got a smoke? I’m not allowed to.’
Palmer reached into his coat. ‘Allowed? Fuck, who’s running things here?’
They lit cigarettes, sat back. Smoke hung around them in the still air, reached the earth, curled. High on the wooded hill behind the pond a cluster of maples blazed amid the brown oaks, seemed to be sucking in the light.
‘Pretty spot,’ said the shorter man. ‘The prick’s hard to kill, is he?’
‘He’s quick.�
��
‘And they’re dead.’
‘Yup. Messy. I sent Charlie Price to sort it out. They told him they’d use pros next time.’
Three ducks came around a small point in the pond, ducks keeping close together, missed the mass exodus to warmer places, just the three of them left.
‘He’s been in the trade,’ said Palmer. ‘Now he’s riding shotgun. He drove this Shawn’s wife home, the arrangement was that he stayed for the husband to get back. I think he just lucked onto this.’
‘Shawn had the film?’
‘Looks like it.’
‘What about him?’
‘Well. A known quantity. Courier mainly. They say Ollie North used him.’
‘You wouldn’t want that to be the high point of your career.’
Palmer shot his cigarette butt towards the water. It fell well short, lay on damp leaf mould. ‘I gather he took Ollie. Like everyone else.’
Silence. The other man shot his butt. It almost made the water, died in a puddle.
‘So who would be using him?’
‘We’re checking.’
‘I was given to understand this history was history.’
Palmer put both hands to his head and scratched all over-back, top, sides. ‘Burghman was in charge, we can’t ask him. The film- well, that’s something else. No one knew about a film then.’
‘Not a huge cast of suspects.’
‘No. Trilling says Burghman told him, he thinks it was in ’93.
Burghman said there’d been a problem but it was fixed and the slate was as clean as it needed to be.’
A deer had appeared from the thicket on the far shore of the lake. It looked around, advanced with delicate steps to the water’s edge, lowered its head and drank.
‘Never saw the point of killing animals like that.’
‘No,’ said Palmer.
‘I might have another smoke.’
A breeze had come up, worrying the trees, worrying the water. Palmer lit a cigarette, handed it over, lit another.
‘As it needed to be. That’s not the same as clean.’
‘No.’
‘This guy’s tried the media. Could try again.’
‘We’ll hear, we’ll have some notice,’ said Palmer.
‘It’s late to be caught in the rain, Scottie.’
They heard the sound of a jet on high, the booming hollow sound, filling the world, pressing on trees and water, on the throat. The deer started, was gone.
‘Won’t happen,’ said Palmer. ‘But we may have to go on with the Brits. I wanted to ask you.’
‘Don’t let Charlie near them. Subtle’s a Mossberg up the arse.’
‘I’ll go myself.’
‘Good. Time. Going back tonight.’
Out of the wind, on the path, deep in shadow, their heads down, feet disturbing the leaves. The other man looked at Palmer and Palmer looked at him, and they both looked away.
The man said, ‘Well, judgment. Live or die by your judgment.
Comes down to that.’
Palmer nodded.
‘But you know that, Scottie.’
‘I do. Sir.’
They walked, smoking, smoke hanging behind them like ragged chiffon scarves, the dark rising beneath them.
53
…WALES…
When they were on the motorway, he told her to drop him somewhere, anywhere, a petrol station, but she said no, they were going somewhere safe, he could decide what to do then.
Niemand didn’t argue. He tried to stay awake but the car was warm and quiet, the smell of leather, soft classical music on the player, and his head lolled and he fell asleep. He woke several times, registered nothing, and then they were entering a village on a narrow road with houses on both sides.
‘Almost there,’ said Jess.
He was asleep again before they were out of the village. He woke with the car going uphill on a stony dirt road, tight bends, their headlights reflecting off pools in the wheel ruts and turning stone walls silver.
They stopped.
An entrance, an old wooden gate.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘This is it.’
She was looking at him.
‘Where?’ he said.
‘Wales.’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Gate.’
He got out, shaky legs, no feeling in his feet. Wet air. Cold, a wind whipping. Dead black beyond the beam of the lights and the only sound the expensive hum of the Audi.
He expected resistance but the gate swung easily, old but maintained, no squeaks, grease in the hinges.
She drove through. Niemand closed the gate. He walked to the car, hurting in many places, the balls of his feet. He didn’t mind. He was glad to be alive. There was a Greek saying for what he felt, for gratitude for life outweighing pain and suffering. He reached for it, the tone of it was in his head, the way it was said, but the words didn’t come.
He got in. They went up a narrow, steep driveway, turned left. The headlights caught one end of a low building, a long cottage, small windows, and they went past it and lit up another building, a stone barn, a big building with brace-and-bar doors and a dormer window.
Jess stopped and got out, the engine running, the lights on. She stretched, arms to the sky, fingers outstretched, then she bent to touch her toes. She was smaller than he remembered her to be.
‘Let’s put it inside,’ she said. ‘I feel like I’m looking after someone’s baby.’
‘Me,’ said Niemand. ‘I’m the baby.’ He said the words without thought but he didn’t regret them, wanted to apologise more fully, thank her.
Jess didn’t reply. She went to the doors, fiddled with keys and unlocked two padlocks. Niemand opened the doors, new doors. The Audi’s lights lit a large space, new concrete floor. A vintage Morris Countryman was to the left, the one with a wooden frame. On a rack against the back wall were big tools: snipper, chainsaw, hedge-trimmer. In front of them stood a stack of bags of fertiliser. To the right, in a line, were an ordinary lawn mower, a ride-on mower, two trail bikes, a mulcher, all new-looking and clean.
Jess parked the Audi.
Lights off. Pitch dark.
The cabin light came on, she got out, opened the back door and removed their bags, closed the door. Dark again.
They didn’t move for a moment, silence.
‘Good gear,’ said Niemand. ‘And neat.’
‘Doctors,’ she said. ‘They’re rich. He’s a slob but she loves order. She wants to come and live here for a few years, grow things.’
He took the bags, closed the doors, and she padlocked them. They walked around the house to the front door, crunching the gravel.
‘No electricity,’ said Jess.
Inside, she found a candlestick close to the door and lit the candle with a plastic lighter. They were in a small hallway, coats and hats above a bench. Three doors opened off the room. She went first, through the lefthand one into a big low-ceilinged room. He could make out armchairs, a sofa, an open hearth.
‘There’s a generator,’ she said, ‘but the lamps will do tonight.’
He followed her through a door into a kitchen. There were Coleman lamps on a shelf. She lit two, she knew what she was doing, how to pump them. The grey-white light brought back memories for him, other places far away and long ago.
‘You need to eat,’ she said.
‘No,’ Niemand shook his head. ‘No thanks.’
In the car, he had woken each time with the nausea he always felt after fear, after firefights, any violence, the sick feeling, and with it the physical tiredness, as if some vital fluid in his body had been drained.
‘Are you…?’
‘Yeah, fine.’
His whole torso hurt, felt battered. It wasn’t a new feeling. The first time was at the School of Infantry, he had boxed against men much bigger, much stronger, badly overmatched, taking heavy body punches, to the ribs, the shoulders, low blows too.
‘Sure?’
‘Sure.’
‘Sleep then. It’s late.’ She pointed. ‘Through there. A bedroom, down the passage there’s a bathroom, I’ll light the water heater.’
Niemand looked around the room. He didn’t want to say it.
‘Jess,’ he said, ‘this place, they can connect it with you?’
‘Nice to hear you say my name,’ she said. ‘Con, who are they?’
‘I don’t know. The owners are your friends?’
‘Yes. I was at school with her sister.’
He was tired, he had trouble standing, legs weak, he had the feeling of not having feet. He put a hand on the back of a chair. ‘Who would know you could get the car, come here, this house?’
Jess touched her hair, pushed it back, he could see the tiredness in her.
‘I’ve been here with the owners,’ she said. ‘They’re in America. I keep an eye on their house in London. I don’t think anyone knows I’ve got these keys.’
Niemand tried to think about this but he gave up.
‘Listen, Jess,’ he said, ‘tomorrow I’ll go and you stay here and I’ll make sure they know you’re not with me, you’re not involved.’
‘Will you tell me what’s going on?’
‘Yes. In the morning. What I know.’
‘Go to bed,’ she said. ‘We’ll talk in the morning.’
For a moment, they stood looking at each other. Then he took a lamp and went to the bedroom, stripped. He walked down the narrow, short passage holding the lamp, almost bumped into her coming out of the bathroom, lowered the lamp to cover himself.
‘It’s too late for modesty,’ she said, smiling. ‘I’ve seen everything you’ve got.’
He showered, trying to keep the water off his bandage. Then he went back to the bedroom, dressed again and lay on the bed under the eiderdown, lay in the dark and listened.
Noise of the wind, hollow sound, lonely. He thought about the Swartberge, the survival course in the mountains, eyelashes frozen in the morning, lip cracks opening, the way human smells carried in the clean cold air.