In the Evil Day

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In the Evil Day Page 25

by Peter Temple


  Their drinks came, delivered by a dark woman, slim, swift, wearing a waistcoat over a white shirt. Beer from Dresden, pils. They drank.

  ‘Cowbarn?’ said O’Malley.

  He forgot nothing.

  Anselm shook his head in pity. ‘This is civilised beer, northern beer.’

  ‘These banks, they offer much resistance?’

  ‘Only the Swiss. Total resistance.’

  ‘Secretive bastards.’

  O’Malley drank again, a good inch, and wiped his lips with a paper napkin. ‘A little mannered for me, this drop. But otherwise you’re cooking with gas.’

  ‘Not all good news. The Johannesburg accounts, no electronic records before 1992. Jersey and Brussels, scanned all paper accounts still active. So we have those Lourens and Bruynzeel transactions.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Lourens. Twelve million through the Jersey account. Most of it spent on properties. Four in England, one in France.’

  O’Malley held up his right hand. ‘In what name?’

  ‘In the name of Johanna Lourens.’

  O’Malley closed his eyes and smiled, a look of bliss. ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘He has two English accounts, that’s been shopping money. About a million, it’s in the report.’

  ‘The properties. Currently held?’

  ‘Unless she’s sold and parked the money somewhere else.’

  ‘What’s the detail?’

  ‘Enough for you to drive by and see what the doctor’s money bought.’

  O’Malley put his head back and made a humming sound through his nose. He brought his chin down and said, ‘No doubt this little tavern would run to a decent bottle of champagne.’

  ‘Who paid Lourens this kind of money?’

  ‘Ours not to wonder,’ said O’Malley. ‘I feel the lovely chill of frozen assets coming on. And I taste Krug. Krugish, I feel Krugish. Join me?’

  Anselm wasn’t sure how to go on. He looked out of the window, he could see a piece of sky, nicotine-tinted grey. Across the street, a silversmith’s display window glowed like a square-cut jewel. There was a burst of sound and the street was full of brightly coloured children tethered to young women: a nearby kindergarten had released the inmates into the custody of their mothers.

  ‘I’ll pass for the moment,’ said Anselm. ‘The film Serrano and Kael talk about, the one Lourens found…’

  ‘Pass? I say again, Krug.’

  ‘The man who’s got the film, he’s in England. People are trying to kill him.’

  O’Malley tilted his head, his poet’s head, ran a hand over the poodle curls. ‘You learned this in your professional capacity, did you?’

  He was saying: Do you tell other people about my business?

  Anselm said, ‘Do you know what Eleven Seventy means?’

  ‘Eleven Seventy.’ Not a question, just a repetition.

  ‘Serrano said Lourens told him someone came to him with a film. Dynamite, he said. He said, tell them it’s Eleven Seventy, they’ll fucking understand. And then Serrano said, that was when he wanted us to go to the Americans.’

  ‘I thought you had memory problems?’ said O’Malley. He finished his beer, looked into the glass. ‘Sure about the Krug?’

  ‘A village in Angola. Wiped out. Does that have meaning?’

  O’Malley looked up and sighed. ‘Boyo, villages get the chop all the time. Afghanistan, Burundi, Macedonia, Iraq, a man can’t keep track. They go, villages, that is the historical fate of villages. Across the centuries, they go more than they come.’

  ‘This particular one.’

  ‘No. It has no meaning.’

  Anselm looked into the pale blue eyes and he thought, I don’t know what this answer means. I don’t know what he thinks about anything.

  I’ve never seen beyond his eyes.

  ‘I’ve got to get back,’ Anselm said. ‘Instructions?’

  O’Malley tapped the envelope. ‘When I’ve read it. Tell your crack team I’ll be sending around a little something of appreciation if this bears fruit.’

  Anselm was getting up.

  ‘Sit for a moment.’

  He sat.

  ‘I say this en passant,’ said O’Malley. He was inserting his car key into the envelope, concentrating.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Lourens is messy. Even after death.’

  He didn’t look up, ran the key through the yellow paper, slowly.

  ‘These smart boys,’ said O’Malley. ‘They had a lot of money lying around doing nothing, this is pre-Mandela South Africa. So they lent some to Lourens. Well, not to him personally, to a company owned by his wife, it’s registered in the UK. Lourens is a chemist by training and he promised them big returns. Some story about a breakthrough drug delivery system. Well, they got bugger all, then the big white dream-time ended. These boys waited till the new mob, bribed to the earlobes, let them shift their ill-gotten out of the country and they were gone. They’re in Australia now, big in bio-tech, cutting edge in the fight against snoring, hot flushes, jock itch. Also manufacturing, they’re applying the old South African talents to a new labour force, chaining the Asian poor to the wheel.’

  ‘They sold you the debt.’

  ‘A fully documented debt. My point is, the Sud-Afs were scared of Lourens. One of the charmers said, this is after we’ve done the deal, bought the debt, he says, good luck and sooner you than me, pal, they call you pal this lot, he says Lourens is poison himself and he’s been in bed with even more dangerous people.’

  O’Malley had the report out, looking at the first page. ‘That’s it,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks for the background.’

  Without looking up, O’Malley said, ‘You aren’t a journalist anymore, John. That part of your life is over.’

  Anselm walked down fume-acrid Sierichstrasse, thinking about what had been. Once his trade had been going to sad and violent places and telling their stories, telling stories of death and barbarism, selling the stories.

  The occupation seemed to have chosen him and it was without glamour or reward. Still, there was a certain dirty-faced dignity and pride in being the person who went where other people didn’t want to go, asked questions they wouldn’t ask, saw things they would rather not see.

  But that was gone forever. He didn’t need O’Malley to tell him what he wasn’t.

  Kaskis once said of a famous New York Times reporter, ‘Covers wars from his hotel room. The dog’s gun-shy.’

  Gun-shy, that’s what he was. He should leave Lourens and Niemand and films of Angolan villages alone.

  As he walked down the howling street, he rubbed his useless fingers. My dead bits, he thought, the bits visibly and tangibly dead.

  64

  …HAMBURG…

  Inskip saw him coming in and raised an arm, the wrist cocked, a pale and bony index finger pointing. Anselm went to his side.

  ‘I have entered the temple wherein all men’s secrets are known,’ said Inskip. ‘It was a fucking doddle. But Joseph Elias Diab’s file is marked ‘Out to Agency’. Permanently removed.’

  ‘What agency?’

  ‘Defense Intelligence Agency.’

  ‘There endeth the lesson,’ said Anselm.

  ‘Tilders wants you to call. Soonest. That’s about ten minutes ago. Beate put him through to me, why I cannot think. Carla’s here, she’s the logical person to take your calls. The senior person.’

  ‘Perhaps Beate favours you, dreams of the touch of your nicotine-scented fingers.’

  He went to his office and rang Tilders. The line was strange, an echo, as if Tilders were in a tunnel.

  Tilders said, ‘The present matter, there is something…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Brussels?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘That person is dead, a suicide, in his office. A gun. Our party called him, they told him that.’

  Bruynzeel dead. Anselm remembered the man’s voice, his wry, weary tone.

  ‘Thank you,’ he
said.

  Bruynzeel, the account in Serrano’s Credit Raceberg, recipient of large loans.

  A suicide.

  He got up and found Tilders’ audiotape, DT/HH /31/02, put it in the machine.

  Serrano at his hotel, talking to the Bruynzeel of Bruynzeel amp; Speelman Chemicals in Brussels.

  Bruynzeel: They want what?

  Serrano: Records. Anything. Everything.

  Bruynzeel: You have records?

  Serrano: No.

  Bruynzeel: Well, just shut up. It’s all bluff. These things pass. Just keep your mouth shut. Trilling’s connections, there’s no problem.

  Serrano: You can talk to him?

  Bruynzeel: I’ll see. Things in the past, no one wants to talk about the past.

  Anselm sat, touching the lost fingers, the Beirut fingers. Cold, they were always cold, like Fraulein Einspenner’s fingers when he held them.

  Trilling’s connections.

  Trilling. Who was Trilling?

  Anselm called up the search engine and typed in trilling.

  There was no shortage of Trillings. The search engine found 21,700 references.

  Bruynzeel amp; Speelman Chemicals.

  Lourens is a chemist by training… O’Malley said that. Perhaps Trilling was in the same line… A long shot. Anselm added chemicals to the search.

  Too many.

  Try drugs.

  The first reference said:

  Pharmentis Corporation president Donald Trilling tonight defended his company’s record on the pricing of drugs sold to the third world.

  The phone.

  Beate, sandpaper voice. ‘A Dr Koenig for you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Alex.

  ‘Is this a bad time?’

  ‘How can that be?’

  ‘Can I say…what can I say?’

  ‘Say I could come around and see you. Or the reverse. Or anything.’

  ‘Come around and see me, I’ll say that?’

  Anselm’s heart lifted and he closed his eyes.

  ‘That’s fine,’ he said, ‘that’s very good. About when would that be? The time doesn’t matter much to me.’

  ‘Whenever your work is, well, after work, whenever. I’m at home, I’m here. So. Any time. From now.’

  ‘From now is fine. I’ll see you soon.’

  ‘Yes. That’s good.’

  ‘I’ll just settle the bill here, get going. Bye.’

  ‘Bye.’

  A moment.

  ‘I could pick you up,’ she said.

  ‘No, I’ll get a cab, it’s easy.’

  ‘Fine. See you soon.’

  ‘Soon.’

  He put the phone down.

  This elation was stupid, he knew that. He saw her face. The phone rang again. Tilders, the dry voice:

  ‘Our friends are meeting again. The same place. In an hour.’

  Kael and Serrano.

  ‘I have something new,’ Tilders said. ‘Worth trying perhaps.’

  ‘Two minutes,’ said Anselm. He rang O’Malley.

  ‘The person in Brussels is dead,’ Anselm said. ‘Apparent suicide by gunshot. Our friends here are meeting again. We can try.’

  There was a pause. Anselm could hear background noises. Perhaps O’Malley was drinking Krug alone. A voice said, ‘British Airways flight 643 to London…’ ‘Sad news,’ said O’Malley. ‘But no thanks. I’m happy to stick with what I’ve got.’

  Anselm said goodbye, sat for a moment. The light was going. He rang Tilders.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘It is the same as the first time. I’ll call you.’

  ‘I’d rather not wait.’

  ‘Otto will pick you up outside in twenty minutes.’

  65

  … HAMBURG…

  They sat in the Mercedes, parked at almost exactly the same place as the first time.

  ‘When?’ said Anselm.

  ‘Four forty-five,’ said Fat Otto. ‘A few minutes.’

  Otto liked to speak English. He had once worked in England, in restaurants.

  Under the ashen, dying sky, the lake was still, pewter, mist on the far shore. A lone swan came into view, imperious in its bearing.

  The words came to Anselm from his father and he said, ‘And always I think of my friend who/amid the apparition of bombs/saw on the lyric lake/the single perfect swan.’

  Fat Otto looked at him. ‘What?’

  ‘Edwin Rolfe. A poem.’

  Fat Otto looked away, looked at his watch.

  ‘He almost missed this appointment,’ he said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Serrano. There was trouble about the hotel safe.’

  Anselm’s mind had turned to Alex, the Italianate face, the full lower lip she sometimes bit when she was listening.

  ‘What kind of trouble?’

  ‘Something about the keys.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with Serrano?’

  Fat Otto’s mobile rang. He listened.

  ‘Ja. Ja, alles okay.

  ’ ‘Serrano’s getting on,’ he said.

  ‘What have the keys got to do with Serrano?’

  ‘His briefcase was in the safe. He couldn’t get it while they were arguing about the keys.’

  ‘Briefcase? The same one?’

  ‘No, he has another.’ Otto looked at his watch again. ‘Paul has to get close with this new gadget.’

  Anselm’s mind had returned to Alex but something passed over his skin like a touch, like walking into a cobweb, cold.

  Serrano’s briefcase in the safe. Trouble over the safe keys.

  Bruynzeel dead.

  There was something wrong here.

  ‘Ring Tilders,’ he said. ‘Tell him not to get on.’

  Fat Otto opened his mouth.

  ‘Do it,’ said Anselm. ‘Now.’

  Fat Otto closed his mouth, tapped a number into his mobile.

  Anselm watched Otto’s face. Otto’s eyes flashed at him, away.

  Anselm’s mouth was dry. Something very wrong.

  ‘It’s off,’ said Otto. ‘He’s switched it off. Interference, he’s scared of that.’

  Anselm closed his eyes. He felt sweat on his forehead, his skin was prickling, the car felt intolerably hot.

  ‘Was ist los?’

  Otto was looking at him. Anselm shook his head. ‘Eine Vorahnung. Nur einen Augenblick lang.

  ’ Otto shrugged. ‘I get them too,’ he said. ‘Before plane trips, I always get them.’ He turned his attention to the black box.

  They sat and listened to crackling, to static. Anselm was rubbing his fingers, the premonition wouldn’t go away, he felt panic coming.

  Sit up straight. Put your hands in your lap, palms up, open. Breathe deeply, breathe regularly.

  ‘From hearing-aid technology,’ said Fat Otto. ‘And the tuner you wear in your ear, like a hearing aid but tiny, invisible. Cordless. The mikes are in spectacles. Three mikes. You tune until you drop out everything you don’t want. To six or seven metres, phenomenal, the clarity. I heard this couple in Spitalerstrasse talking dirty, whispers, whispering dirty, she said to him…’ ‘This isn’t phenomenal clarity,’ said Anselm.

  ‘We had no time to test transmitting.’

  They sat for a long time listening to crackling and hissing, Fat Otto fiddled, Anselm tried to still his mind, slow the turning of the planet.

  Serrano’s briefcase in the safe. The keys to the safe. An argument about the keys to the safe.

  Bruynzeel dead. Lourens dead. Falcontor. Credit Raceberg.

  ‘The transmitter,’ said Fat Otto. ‘Still, we’ll have it. Probably.’

  The ferry came into view, sliding on glass, windows aglow, in the last moments of the day.

  Anselm felt the panic recede. The beating in his chest was less insistent, his pulse rate was falling. He opened his mouth and his jaw muscles made a noise, relief from the clenching.

  Kael’s dark-blue Mercedes was in the same spot fifty metres from t
he landing, the driver leaning against it, looking at a hand, his nails, bored.

  Calm. Anselm felt it come, his mouth was moist again, the salivary glands working.

  All that troubled the lake was the ferry’s wake, the chevron, corrugations expanding, dissipating.

  The lyric lake.

  Only the swan missing, alone and perfect. The swan had come along too early.

  They would have to go somewhere to listen to Tilders’ tape, ensure that there was something to listen to, that this hadn’t been a complete fuck-up. Or they could listen in the car. This would have to be a separate bill, a private bill, this was not O’Malley work, O’Malley had his freezable assets, he had what he wanted. Not a bill, no, ask Tilders to name an amount for this evening’s work, pay him in cash. Tilders would be impassive. But there would be something in his eyes.

  In the distance, another Mercedes, black, parked illegally, there was no parking there. A wife, a driver, picking up the weary financial analyst, not parking, just waiting.

  The day was dwindling, the far shore dark now.

  Fat Otto switched off the noise, the crackling, the sibilance.

  ‘We have to work on this,’ he said.

  Anselm ran hands up and down his cheeks, heard the sawing of the beard. He would ask Fat Otto for a lift to Alex’s.

  When they had heard the tape.

  He thought about unbuttoning the shirt. She always wore shirts. Kissing the lower lip that she bit. Biting it for her.

  He felt in his groin the possibility of an erection, perhaps more than a possibility. He moved his thighs apart, made room for possibility. The ferry was about to dock, a handful of people waiting.

  ‘An experiment,’ said Fat Otto. ‘Better next time.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Anselm.

  Movement inside the ferry. Passengers getting up.

  There was a sound, not loud.

  The ferry lit up inside.

  Light red as blood, dark streaks in it.

  A hole appeared in the ferry roof, a huge scarlet spear through the roof.

  The ferry lifted, not high, came down, settled on the water, listed, burning inside.

  ‘Um Gottes Willen,’ said Otto. ‘Um Gottes Willen.’

  Anselm was out of the car and running for the landing when he looked for the black Mercedes.

  It was gone.

 

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