Helena travelled back to Munich, went to Green Headquarters again, burrowed through files and clippings, asked about Adam Peters, but to no particular avail. On the off-chance, she rang Max’s deputy, James Whitaker, in New Hampshire, to see whether he had had any news. He hadn’t, but he told her the Bavarian link might mean something. Apart from the woman from Berlin who had openly confronted Max at the Oslo conference, there had also been a delegate from Murnau and Max, for some reason James hadn’t been able to fathom, had been troubled after he had spoken to him.
‘His name wasn’t by any chance, Adam Peters,’ Helena asked with bated breath.
‘Hold on. I’ve got the list of delegates somewhere. Here it is, Gerhardt Stieler.’ He gave her an address.
Stieler, when she saw him the next day, was effusively cordial, but no help at all. He sat prodding a tiny scar on his cheek and told her what a wonderful man Max was, wholly admirable.
Downcast, Helena returned to the little inn where Max had stayed. Perhaps, if she remained here long enough, Max might magically appear.
The buxom Frau Bauer was visibly pleased to see her. As if in reward for her return, she said to her the next morning at breakfast, ‘You know, I think I’ve remembered where that other letter I posted for Herr Hillman went to. It was something like Sudhafen or…’
‘Seehafen,’ Helena prompted her.
‘Yes, that could well be it.’
Helena could have hugged her. She didn’t bother to change out of her jeans, simply donned her bright jacket and raced to the car. She had known it all along. Her instincts had told her that the house, that Adam Peters held the keys she needed to Max’s whereabouts.
Fifteen minutes later, she was turning into the drive which led to the house, letting the knocker fall loudly on the door. The young woman who had opened it to her last time was standing there again.
Helena retrieved her name, ‘Guten Tag, Elsa. Is Mr. Peters in?’
Elsa looked at her askance. Had Adam Peters reprimanded her for inviting strangers in? Before she had a chance to say anything, Adam Peters appeared behind her. He was wearing a loose fitting dark suit and it gave him a formality she didn’t remember.
‘Ms Latimer, how very nice to see you again,’ he ushered her in. ‘Though only for a few moments, I’m afraid. I’m rushing some friends up to Munich. Your travel piece going well?’
It was odd confronting him. They were strangers, yet they had shared the intimacy of a house, of breakfast.
Helena cleared her throat, ‘I need to ask you a few more questions.’
He led her towards the kitchen. ‘No time now, really,’ he glanced at his watch. ‘But come and have a very quick cup of coffee and meet my friends.’
Two short muscled men with jet black eyes and inky hair stood as Helena entered the room.
Adam Peters addressed them in a language she couldn’t understand. The men nodded sagely, grinned at her.
‘Roman Barriga and Moses Palcazu are from Amazonia. They’ve been representing the Union of Indian Nations in Geneva, and since they’d already flown so far, I invited them here, to make some speeches, see some journalists. About the rainforest and landrights.’
Helena looked at him in astonishment. It was a little difficult to tally this information with the cynical image she had constructed of Adam Peters. She was about to launch a series of questions at him when she remembered herself: she was still playing the part of the slightly scatty travel writer. She cursed herself for a professional opportunity missed, made some comments which sounded inane to her own ears and finally asked Adam ‘Are they here for long?’
‘One more interview and then I’m afraid it’s the airport. In fact we must be going.’
The man called Barriga said something to Adam Peters which brought a smile to his lips.
‘Roman says you should come and write an article about their part of the world. Before it changes beyond recognition.’
‘I’d love to,’ the warmth in her own voice made Helena realise that it was the first thing she had ever said whole-heartedly in Adam Peter’s presence. The thought made her flush. She smiled at the two men brightly to hide it.
Adam was eyeing her oddly, ‘Well, come back on Monday and I’ll answer your questions and tell you how to get hold of Roman and Moses. That’s if you’re still in the neighbourhood then.’
‘Yes, yes. Monday will be fine.’ She shook hands with the two men, wished as she waved at Adam Peter’s from the door, that she could make up part of their little group; then, as if in deliberate self-contradiction wondered if the two men’s appearance here could have anything at all to do with Max.
Suddenly she felt like crying. It was a strange sensation: it had been so long since she had cried. She was getting nowhere fast. And everything seemed to grow increasingly confused. Where was the Helena Latimer who had a reputation for cool trenchancy, for ferreting things out at great speed?
Monday took too long to arrive, but when it did, she dressed carefully for her meeting with Adam Peters. He wouldn’t catch her napping this time: a trim pale grey suit, silk blouse, stockings, the armour of the professional woman she was. She looked at herself in the mirror. It came to her as it had before that being a woman was in itself a masquerade. It was only when she was seen or seeing herself, after all, that she considered herself as that other creature, a woman.
And today, she was going to be the sophisticated version, par excellence. The luminously red lipstick, the black clasp holding back her hair, the loose crumpled silk coat that Claire had insisted she buy, the box like black briefcase, were the finishing touches. Female armour to intimidate the mere male that Adam Peters was.
It was a bright crisp day and the snow on the lowlying hills had started to melt revealing bursts of wetly green grass. She could hear the jingle of cowbells in the distance as she turned into the drive of the house.
Adam Peters opened the door to her himself. He looked at her in perplexity for a moment. His hair was ruffled, as if he had been running his hands through it ceaselessly. It gave him a slightly disreputable air, which was hardly erased by the low whistle he greeted her with.
‘Well, well. Dressed for work today, are we? You’re sure you’ve come to the right place?’
‘You did invite me back, as I remember.’
‘So I did. It was you, was it?’ he was laughing at her. ‘Well come on in then. Though it can’t be the kitchen today,’ his eyes skimmed over her, landed with an ogle on her briefcase. ‘Perhaps the sitting room,’ he opened the door, then shook his head. ‘No, forgot. I’ve started painting the walls in there and we wouldn’t want to be responsible for any damage to that coat. Might get sued for more than I’m worth. Can’t be the library either. Might start reading my papers again, while I offer you some tea. I know, it’ll have to be the conservatory. Then you can gaze on Johannes Bahr in all his glory.’
‘That was quite a speech,’ Helena muttered as she plumped her coat into his arms.
‘Was it? I must be babbling overtime. All that interpreting.’ he smiled a disarming smile.
She followed him through the left wing of the house into the conservatory.
‘Will it be tea today, Ms Latimer. Something stronger?’
‘Tea would be lovely.’
‘You’re rather lovely.’
‘It must be the suit.’
‘No, no. It’s the briefcase,’ he winked at her. ‘Sugar?’
She shook her head, watched him stride away. Ridiculous man, she thought to herself.
She looked out the glass expanse at the back of the spacious room. There was a fluffy cat prowling through the shrubbery, a robin perched in absolute stillness on a branch as if he were enticing the cat closer. Helena observed them for a moment, then walked slowly round the room. She paused in front of the mural she had read about.
Anna had indeed been a remarkably beautiful woman. Those softly rounded limbs, that head bent back with a swaying grace, that lilting expression: it was as if sh
e were giving herself up, giving herself away to the elements. The notion suddenly made her uncomfortable.
‘Yes, you can see it now, can’t you?’ Adam Peters drawled behind her. ‘The queues lining up to gape. The ‘wow’s’ and ‘awesome’s’ and ‘wicked’s’; the men grumbling, ‘my five year old can do better than that’; the women preening, ‘she’s a bit fat, isn’t she’.’
Helena veered round to face him, ‘I’m not writing a guide to Disneyland, you know.’
He chuckled, placed a tray on the wrought-iron table. ‘What you are writing is exactly what I do want to know.’ He was carrying a newspaper and he now waved it at her threateningly. ‘I’ve just read a rather long piece by you, all about something called The Dirty Dozen, a little travel guide to DDT and paraquat and chlordane and other such chemical wonders of the unnatural world.’
Helena examined her hands. It had never occurred to her that he would read an English paper here.
‘Well?’
‘Well, I’m on holiday,’ she looked up at him brightly, ‘doing a little free-lancing to pay my way.’
‘You’re sure you haven’t been taking soil samples or testing the lake while my back was turned?’
‘Would that be so very terrible?’
He scrutinized her for a minute, stepped menacingly close, ‘Well actually, no.’
Then, as if it were the most natural gesture in the world, he suddenly put his arms round her and kissed her hard on the lips. For a moment, Helena was so surprised she forgot to struggle. When she pulled away from him, she was angry, at herself as well for not having seen it coming. She looked at him severely, ‘That wasn’t necessary.’
‘No, perhaps not. But it was quite nice. Only quite. And you owe me one. For misrepresentation… Besides, I warned you,’ he skimmed her cheek with his fingers, ‘I can’t resist a woman with a briefcase.’
‘I’d better get rid of it then,’ she grumbled, tucked the case under a chair.
‘Some tea?’ he was laughing at her again.
‘If you behave as one does over tea.’
‘The perfect host,’ he handed her a cup ceremoniously. ‘Now what can really I do for you Ms. Latimer,’ his voice now carried a formal propriety which erased anything else that might have passed.
‘First of all you can tell me who else around here has been snooping, as you so plainly put it, apart from me,’ Helena plunged right in, her discomfort over that stolen kiss, adding an edge to her voice. ‘I don’t want to find I’ve been scooped.’
‘I shouldn’t think that happens too often. In any case, no journalists as far as I know.’ He looked away from her through the glazed door. ‘Just an old man, out there. Right out there,’ he pointed.
Helena sat very still.
‘I caught him at it. He told me he was an admirer of Johannes Bahr. Obviously Bahr’s admirers like turning up in unconventional ways.’
Helena let the aside pass. She cleared her throat, ‘And? Who was he?’
Adam shrugged, ‘Some man with a lot of time and no concern for the waste of another’s.’
She was about to press him when she simultaneously realised the thrust of his remark and that she was showing far too much curiosity about a man who was obviously not a potential rival. Helena put her cup down with a clatter.
‘Alright, I take the hint, just the minimal guided tour please.’
He showed her round the house, giving her information about pictures, a little potted lecture about twentieth century German art.
‘You make a wonderful guide,’ she told him.
‘Yes, my future cut out for me after you’ve written your fabulous piece. A new career. Just what the bank manager ordered,’ he said it with a hint of bitterness.
‘Surely the bank manager needn’t worry. All this belongs to you, I presume.’
He looked at her askance, ‘You mean I could sell the lot and be a rich man. Now I’d never have thought of that.’
It was a rebuke and Helena fell silent. They were walking down the path that led to Johannes Bahr’s grave. When they arrived at the sheer black slab, Adam said in a flat voice that was too loud, ‘And this is where they’re buried.’
‘They?’ Helena looked up at him in consternation. His eyes were dark, angry.
‘I’m sorry. You don’t like coming here.’
‘No, no, it’s not that,’ his tone softened. ‘It’s just the waste.’
‘They?’ Helena asked again.
‘Of course, you don’t know. Anna’s here beside him.’
‘I see,’ Helena let the thought sink in. There was a host of questions she wanted to ask, but the set of his face forbade it. Something in it made her want to reach out and touch him. She did so, impulsively, softly.
He raised a querying eyebrow, smiled. ‘Had enough?’
She nodded.
It was as they strolled back to the house that Helena suddenly decided it.
‘Look, I haven’t been altogether honest with you.’
‘You don’t say?’ she let the edge of it pass.
‘I do say.’
‘Well tell me another story now.’
‘This is the story. I’m not a liar. It’s only because of the extraordinary circumstance.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, first of all, I’m not writing a travel piece.’
‘That’s good, because you haven’t looked at the scenery once or asked me about the name of that bruiser of a cliff over there or about the fish in the lake or…’
‘Alright, that’s enough.’
‘So?’
‘So I’m looking for someone. Someone who has disappeared. A man by the name of Max Bergmann. Do you know him? Does the name mean anything to you? He might be calling himself Hillman.’
They had come round to the back of the house. Through the conservatory windows she could see the wrought iron table, the tea tray. The spot where he had snatched a kiss from her. Max could have been standing right here just a few weeks’ back. It came to her again that trusting Adam might be the wrong thing to do. But she had no choice now.
He was gazing at her reflectively. ‘The short answer to all that is no.’
He opened a narrow door at the side of the house, held it for her. There was a challenge on his face, ‘Does that mean your business with me is finished or are you going to take up just a little bit more of my time?’
Helena walked brusquely past him.
‘Who is this man? Your lover?’
She turned on him, anger lodged in two pink spots on her cheeks. ‘Why is it that a woman can’t look for a man, ask after a man, without the instant imputation that he’s her lover?’
‘I’m sorry. You’re right. I have an occasional affinity to those creatures you don’t like to eat,’ he looked genuinely shamefaced. But then he grinned, ‘So he isn’t. Your lover, I mean?’
Helena stamped her foot with irritation, ‘No, Max Bergmann is not my lover.’
‘Good, I’m glad. It’s just that you had that fiery look in your eye when you said his name.’
Had she had something to throw, Helena thought, she would have thrown it.
‘Wait a minute. Bergmann, isn’t he that environmentalist whose book you had with you? The prophet of natural disasters, the apocalypse-monger.’
‘You would call him that.’
‘Now, now, don’t get me wrong. I’m interested in apocalypses. Winged horsemen, writhing serpents, rough beasts slouching, polluting plagues, winds, floods, fire, ice. Hot or cold, wet or dry or any variety of visitants from outer or inner space, ancient or modern’ he chuckled. ‘You could even say I’m something of an expert on them.’
‘Which undoubtedly accounts for your sweet temper.’
‘Undoubtedly.’
They glared at each other for a moment.
‘So why are you here? And here again?’
She didn’t answer him immediately.
He uncorked a bottle of wine, passed her a glass. ‘A peace offering, An
d the truth please.’
Helena took a deep breath and told him about Max’s disappearance, the worry over his possible death; told him about the letter she had received with its descriptions, one of them of this very house.
To his credit he looked genuinely puzzled. ‘And have you been to the local police?’
Helena shook her head. ‘I can’t do that.’
‘Why ever not?’ Suddenly he let out a low whistle. ‘I see. You think he may be up to no good. Or to good, from your point of view,’ he grimaced, altered his tone as he looked at her face. ‘Well I wish I could, but I don’t see how I can help you.’
‘That man who was here, the one you said was snooping…’
‘The older man you mean?’
She nodded.
‘You mean Bergmann is not a dashing young prince. Well, well, well…’
Helena scowled. ‘What did he look like?’
‘Let’s see, weather-beaten face, white hair, tall, quite prepossessing I guess, if he hadn’t been a snooper.’
‘It could have been him, in fact I’m almost certain it was,’ Helena murmured. ‘Can you remember exactly what he said?’
Adam Peters shrugged. ‘There wasn’t much more than I’ve already told you. I don’t usually talk to snoopers, unless they happen to have exceedingly long legs and golden hair and deliciously blue eyes,’ he grinned, mouthed a ‘sorry’, then hurried on. ‘We talked a little about Johannes Bahr. He asked me whether I liked the work. Quite genial really. And he had an echt Berliner accent. I always like hearing it. So different, so much quicker than what’s spoken around here.’
Helena looked puzzled. ‘I didn’t know Max had German,’ she murmured.
‘Well maybe this wasn’t your Max.’
‘I think it was,’ she said softly. ‘Was he wearing glasses?’
‘Those. Of course,’ he shrugged. ‘He came back. Or at least I assume it was him.’
‘You didn’t tell me that.’
‘I haven’t had a chance yet. I’m telling you now.’
‘And?’
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