by Peter Temple
‘Caroline, we’re at the end of the road here, darling.’
‘I need a little more time,’ she said, confidence gone.
‘Full account. Pronto. Today. In writing, in detail.’
‘I think I’ve shown…’ ‘Shown? You won’t mind me saying turning up Brechan’s bumboy, that’s now looking less spectacular. A lot less clever of you. In the light of information received.’
The skin of her face felt tight. Information received?
‘I’ll get back to you,’ she said.
‘You will. Soonest. And the contract, well, study the fine print.’
Minutes passed. She realised she was rubbing her hands together. The phone again.
‘Caroline, Tony Kourie. Listen, I’ve got a likely Joe Diab. Joseph Elias Diab, age thirty-six, born Los Angeles, parents both born in Beirut. Former US Army senior sergeant.’
‘Yes?’
‘And dead. Outside the house of his cousin, six shots to the body.’
‘When?’
‘Night of 5 October, 1993.’
‘Thanks, Tony. Really, thanks. Repay you if I can.’
‘Tell the bastards to run some more of my stuff.’
‘I will.’
Caroline looked at the printouts, but she didn’t pick them up for a while. She knew. Anselm, Kaskis and Riccardi had been kidnapped on the night of 5 October, 1993.
57
…HAMBURG…
She would be full of regret.
Then again, she might not be.
He was going through the day before’s logbooks, rendering them billable, thinking about Alex, thinking about what happened next.
The phone whispered. Beate.
‘Herr Anselm, a Caroline Wishart. Yes?’
He thought to say no, he wanted to say no, but he had given her the number. She would try again.
‘Yes. Thank you.’
Beate said, ‘Mr Anselm will take your call.’
They said hello.
She said, ‘Mr Anselm, I’m really sorry to bother you again.’
He waited, he didn’t mind being rude to her, he didn’t want to talk to her, let her feel that in his silence.
‘It’s about Paul Kaskis.’
He didn’t want to talk about Kaskis or about Beirut, to this woman, to anyone.
‘Ms Wishart, I don’t know what you’re working on, I know nothing about you except that you caught a politician with his pants down. And life and death is just a phrase. So, with regret, no.’
A pause.
‘Mr Anselm, please, please just listen to me,’ she said, rushing. ‘It’s not just a phrase. A man showed me a film of people being murdered. In Africa. By American soldiers. He wanted to sell the film. Then I saw someone try to kill him. I also want to ask you whether you know that Joseph Diab, the man Paul Kaskis was in Beirut to see…’ She ran out of air. ‘Joseph Elias Diab was murdered the same night you were kidnapped. He was executed.’
A film.
Anselm barely heard the rest.
A man called Shawn murdered in Johannesburg. And Lafarge in London looking for a man named Martin Powell, now thought to be Constantine Niemand, who was there when Shawn died and who killed Shawn’s killers.
Kael had talked about a film.
If this prick’s got the papers and the film, whatever the fucking film is…How did Lourens die?
‘What’s the man’s name?’ he said. ‘The man with the film?’
‘Mackie. He called himself Mackie. Bob Mackie.’
Not Powell or Niemand.
‘I’ll call you back in a few minutes, said Anselm. ‘Give me your number again.’
He went through to the workroom. Inskip wasn’t at his station. The man next door, Jarl, the Scandinavian and Baltic specialist, pointed to the passage door and drew on an imaginary cigarette. A longing imitation.
Anselm followed Jarl’s finger, braved Beate’s eyes, and then it took muscle to open the glass door against the wind, then to prevent it slamming. Cold. It would be cold even with a coat. The north wind was running a rabble of clouds across a pale-blue sky. Across the road, the trees were stripped for winter now, shivering.
Inskip had his back to the view, to the lake, to the wind, lighting up. He handed over the cigarette and lit another. They hunched against the wind ‘A holiday,’ said Inskip. ‘I’m thinking, let’s fly away to ten days of sun. Sun and naked skin.’
‘Why waste money,’ said Anselm. ‘You can get the exposure here over two or three years. For naked skin, we have St Pauli.’
Inskip didn’t look at him. He drew on the cigarette held high in his fingers, near the tips.
‘My, you’ve thrown my thoughts into disarray,’ he said. ‘I had in mind a concentrated experience, two or three years of sun in ten days. And I was thinking of my own skin. My own etiolated skin.’
Anselm blew smoke. The wind’s grab reminded him of a holiday in the Hamptons in winter when he was a teenager, smoking in the dunes, the wind-whipped grass, the stinging sand, grit on teeth.
‘Those South African lists?’ he said. ‘Remember your piece of detection?’
‘Indeed. The aborted coup gang.’
‘Write them down?’
‘In the file.’
‘Of course.’
They smoked. Below them, on Schone Aussicht, two police motorcyclists appeared, riding abreast. A police car followed, then three dark-grey Mercedes Benz saloons. A second police car and two more motorcycles completed the convoy.
‘Who’s this?’ said Inskip.
‘Some nonentity. No mine detectors, no helicopters, no foot soldiers.’
Inskip rubbed his beard stubble. ‘Pardon my inquisitive nature but I’ve wondered about something. Does this firm make enough to have premises a few spits from the Senate guesthouse?’
Anselm took a last draw, cartwheeled the butt into the sad garden below. ‘It’s complicated but the short answer is No. I need that file.’
They went inside, crossed the room, raked by the cold fire of Beate’s disapproval. Anselm collected the file and took it to his office. He looked at the lists and then he went back to Inskip’s station and gave him the name.
Ten minutes later, Inskip came in with a piece of paper.
‘A charming woman in the newspaper’s library,’ he said. ‘She looked it up for me. They still have actual paper clippings and file cards with names.’
‘Quaint,’ said Anselm.
He looked at the sheet of paper, then he put it in the file. He rang Caroline Wishart.
‘I can’t help you,’ he said. ‘The name Mackie means nothing. And Diab’s death, that was just a coincidence. People got shot in Beirut all the time then.’
She was silent.
He didn’t wait, said sorry and goodbye.
The file was open on the desk, the names of the brigands assembled to stage a coup in the Seychelles.
Just above POWEL, MARTIN on the first list.
Just above NIEMAND, CONSTANTINE on the amended list.
The name MACKIE, ROBERTANGUS.
Robert Angus Mackie was a mercenary, killed in Sierra Leone in 1996 said the newspaper library in Johannesburg.
The man who showed Caroline Wishart the film, the man Lafarge were hunting, he wasn’t Bob Mackie.
The man was Constantine Niemand.
58
…LONDON…
Caroline listened to her voicemail. It had gone unattended.
Listen you homophobic bitch, you think you can crucify this man because he…
Next.
Hi, Caroline, my name’s Guy and I think we should meet. I’ve been fucked by names, you would not believe, I’m talking about big names, I’m talking show business, I’m…
Next.
Caroline, I’m Tobin Robinson’s producer. Tobin would very much…
Next.
Listen, sweetie, I really like your face, you have that kind of thin cocksucker…
Next.
We had a little chat
, glass of beer, you came to see me. Remember?
It was Jim Hird, the doorman who saw Mackie.
I was talkin to a bloke today, he wrote down the number of that bike, know the one I mean? Some blokes come around askin but he didn’t like the look of ’em, kept mum. I thought you might have a use for it.
He read out the number.
She was out of the door in seconds but she had to wait five minutes for Alan Sindall, the chief crime reporter, to get off the phone before she could ask him.
‘You’ll have to buy me a drink,’ he said. ‘I’ve got something urgent on at the mo. I’ll send it around. Soonest.’
59
…LONDON…
The man’s name was Kirkby. He raised his wine glass to the light, studying the yellowish liquid like a pathologist with an unusual urine sample. ‘We always try to help,’ he said. ‘Where possible.’
‘It’s finding someone,’ said Palmer.
They were in a wine bar in the City, in a long room with tables under high windows. Casca had arranged it. Casca said MI6 suggested a meeting, and that meant something.
Kirkby put the glass to his beaky nose, sniffed deeply, sipped, took in air like a fish, closed his eyes, rolled wine around his mouth, swallowed. ‘Helen Turley,’ he said. ‘A genius. One of yours.’
‘What?’
‘She made this drop. The proprietor here managed to get two cases. Exorbitant price. But.’
Palmer saw that Kirkby had caught the eye of the man behind the counter of the wine bar, a huge red-bearded, red-faced person wearing an apron. Kirkby toasted him wordlessly. The man nodded and raised his own glass.
Palmer drank. He liked wine. He’d come late to it. His father’s view had been that wine was one of many European curses on America. For some reason, he regarded it as an Italian curse. Probably because his father disliked Italians even more than he disliked the Irish. ‘The only good thing about the Irish is that they’re not Italian,’ he said when Palmer told him he planned to marry someone of Irish descent.
‘We’d like to know if he leaves, of course,’ said Palmer. ‘But he’s with a local. That’s where we’d appreciate help.’
Kirkby looked at him, a neutral gaze, looked away, looked back. ‘Yes?’
‘She may be the easiest way to find him.’
‘And she’s not…helping?’
‘Out of sight too.’
‘Inquiries, who’s been…?’
‘A private firm. Lafarge.’
Palmer knew that Kirkby knew about Lafarge.
‘Private. Yes.’ Kirkby touched his oiled hair, smiled, raised his glass to his lips. He seemed to hold wine around his gums before swallowing.
‘It’s urgent,’ said Palmer. ‘We wouldn’t ask otherwise.’
‘No, of course you wouldn’t. I’ll, ah, I’ll have a word with someone. Ask them to get a move on too.’
Palmer took out the card and held it edgeways on the table. Kirkby took it, delicately, at a corner, put it in his top pocket without a glance.
‘We’d like to know where she might go, friends, that kind of thing,’ Palmer said. ‘Without alarming her.’
‘Yes,’ said Kirkby, ‘that’s more or less what I thought you’d like.’
He finished his wine, licked his lips, took a doubled envelope from an inside pocket and gave it to Palmer. It wasn’t sealed.
Palmer took out his reading glasses. He hated having to do that.
Three pages. Phone-tap transcripts.
Palmer read, and he had to stop himself sighing.
‘You can keep those,’ said Kirkby.
‘Thanks.’
‘Well-connected, unfortunately. The father.’
Palmer nodded. It was over and they got up and went to the counter. He paid. Exorbitant was about right for the wine, he thought. At the door, they shook hands.
‘I’ll make a call from here,’ said Kirkby. ‘Get things moving.’
60
…HAMBURG…
Anselm went to the basement and got a beer from the machine. Soon they’d take the machine away. The room was empty, the heating off, damp blistering the paint on a wall. No one used the place any more except to sneak a smoke, avoid going out into the chill. In the first years after his arrival, the room always had people in it, financial charlatans from the top floor, advertising people from the annexe, people drinking liquor and coffee, smoking, eating their packed lunches. Flirting. The truck had come to refill the beer machine every afternoon. He’d never lingered, nervous, hanging out, just got two beers, gone outside, drained them in minutes.
He sat on the formica-topped table, put his feet on a chair. The television in the corner was on, an old Grundig, the colour uncertain. Beyond midday and he was only on his first beer. What did this mean? He took a measured swig and lit a cigarette. Drink and smoke, the fatal, sweetest combination.
Constantine Niemand had a film of something terrible in Africa. He tried to sell it to Caroline Wishart and later she saw someone try to kill him.
Kael and Serrano sent Shawn to Johannesburg to look for papers, documents, anything that involved them. Shawn found a film too. Then he was murdered. Niemand was there, and then he had the film and the documents.
Lafarge were looking for Niemand and someone called Jessica Thomas.
Caroline Wishart wanted to connect Kaskis’ one-paragraph reference to a rumour about an Angolan village to the film Niemand showed her.
Anselm thought about San Francisco, about Kaskis calling from somewhere, a message on the machine:
A few days in Beirut, it’s on me, my grandpa’s money’s come through, to spend not on myself but in the interests of truth and justice. I need a witness, a reputable witness, but you’ll have to do. And a photographer. Got one handy? Footloose and fancy-free?
On the plane two days later, Kaskis was just himself, giving away nothing, you didn’t bother to question Kaskis, he told you what he wanted to tell you. It was a free trip to somewhere where there were always saleable stories to be found.
What had Kaskis said about Diab?
He’s a bitter man, a wronged man, the army done him wrong…
He couldn’t remember when Kaskis had said that. At the hotel in Beirut perhaps. Riccardi arrived after them, the morning after. Kaskis and Riccardi went for coffee. How much did Riccardi know about the job? Who was he there to photograph? Stills or video? Black and white? Colour? So much photographic equipment hung off Riccardi that people in the street had been known to point and ask: How much for that?
But surely Riccardi already knew when he arrived in Beirut? Kaskis would have described the job when he rang him in Ireland. Told him who, why, the point of the exercise.
There was no certainty of that. Riccardi often forgot to ask the most basic questions. He simply didn’t care. And Kaskis always had the this-is-your-commanding-officer-and-I’ll-tell-you-what-you-need-to-know air. Presumably that came from the army. He joined at seventeen, became a Green Beret, ended up in Delta Force. He didn’t talk about it much. Once he had said the army didn’t want you to go beyond a certain stage of maturity:
‘If you’ve got the brains to grasp that, then baby, it’s time to saddle up and ride. The ones who don’t, well, they’re kids forever. Playing this fucking wonderful game with really dangerous stuff. And I’m not talking just the grunts, the cannon fodder. There are kids right at the top-the fucking Pentagon’s full of them.’
Anselm stubbed his cigarette, tested the can for beer, wobbled it, drained it.
The television showed a heavily built man getting into a car, Secret Service protectors around him. The woman on television said:
In spite of strong rumours, American Defense Secretary Michael Denoon today continued to avoid declaring that he will next year seek the Republican Party nomination for the American presidency. Gerald McGowan reports from Washington.
A solemn-looking man came on, standing in front of the White House. He put his hands into the pockets of his black overcoat an
d said:
White House insiders are today saying that Secretary of Defense Michael Denoon is hours away from resigning his position to begin his late run for the presidency.
Since the collapse of the Gurney campaign, Denoon is said to have been urged to take the field by powerful interests. These include the US military, which he left twelve years ago as a much-decorated four-star general, and the Republican Party’s most powerful business group, Republicans at Work.
Anselm was on the stairs when he thought about the flight to Beirut. Business class. Free drinks. He had been drowsing, cabin lights dimmed. Kaskis had taken a photograph out of his briefcase, adjusted the overhead spotlight to look at it. An 8 x 10 print, a group of men, perhaps a dozen, posing like a team, standing, some squatting or on one knee. Young men in casual clothes, jeans, T-shirts, some baseball caps. He remembered signatures-they had signed across their chests with a broad-nibbed pen, a felt-tipped pen, not full names, first names. He remembered thinking some of the signatures were childlike, immature. He also remembered thinking they all looked like bodybuilders. The thick necks, the big, veined biceps.
Anselm went to his office and found a file. He took it into the humming workroom. Inskip was reading an airline passenger list.
‘When you’ve got a moment,’ said Anselm.
‘This’ll keep.’
Anselm sat down and wrote the name ‘Joseph Elias Diab’ on Inskip’s pad. ‘I need a US Army service record. National Archives and Records Admin database. They run something called CIPS, Centres Information Processing System. To get what’s called a NARS-5 record, you need a user ID and a password. Users are federal agencies. And you can only access the record groups used by the agency you represent.’
‘Naturally,’ said Inskip. He looked at the ceiling and rubbed his chin stubble. ‘Just sticks in the mind does it, this sort of stuff?’
‘Veterans Affairs are easiest. They’re allowed to see most things.’
‘I’m going to need some handholding here.’
Anselm found what he was looking for in the file. He wrote it on the pad. ‘The procedure’s here. Carla did this one a couple of months ago.’