Alphabet House

by Adler-Olsen, Jussi

  Mr Scott’s guests were given an extremely formal welcome. He didn’t know them and hadn’t asked them to come. It was a busy week, as usual. Naturally the work burden reflected his company’s success, but was also making him pretty fed up. He hadn’t slept enough all week.

  ‘You must excuse me, gentlemen, but the traffic on the M2 is just crazy today.’

  ‘You drive in from the east,’ the older man said, smiling, ‘so perhaps you’re still living in Canterbury?’

  Mr Scott looked questioningly at his visitor and screwed up his eyes. He glanced at his desk calendar again and studied the names: Managing Director Clarence W. Lester and junior partner W.W. Lester, Wyscombe & Lester & Sons, Coventry. ‘That’s right, I do, in fact. I’ve never lived anywhere else.’ The smile made his eyes close still further. Many people found the deep wrinkles around his eyes attractive. ‘Perhaps we’ve met before, Mr Lester?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Indeed. Though it was many years ago and under quite different circumstances.’

  Mr Scott raised a finger. ‘But you’re not from Canterbury yourself, I can hear. May I guess? Wolverhampton?’

  ‘You’re very close. I was born in Shrewsbury and spent my younger days in Sheffield.’

  ‘And now you’re in Coventry, I see,’ after another peek at his desk calendar. ‘Have we done business before, Mr Lester?’

  ‘No, we haven’t. That is to say, sooner or later all English pharmaceutical companies run into difficulties with one of your licences. But no, we haven’t had the pleasure of meeting one another on business terms before now.’

  ‘Rotary? Sports Federation? Eton? Cambridge?’

  The younger of the two men straightened his briefcase and smiled. Mr Lester shook his head. ‘Well, we’re not here to talk about old times, Mr Scott, so I think I’d better raise the veil. I know you’re a busy man. You see, we met each other long ago. True enough, it was under different names then. Naturally that confuses the issue.’

  ‘I see. Yes, it’s true I’ve changed my name. My mother and stepfather were divorced. I don’t think about it any more. My name was Young then. Bryan Underwood Scott Young, and now it’s just plain Scott. What about you?’

  ‘Lester is my wife’s name. She thought my own name sounded provincial. But I took revenge on her by keeping my family name as a middle name. Wilkens, sir.’

  Bryan took his time studying the elderly gentleman. Even though Bryan’s own features had become chiselled in the course of time, he nevertheless imagined himself more or less imperishable. On the other hand it was difficult to recognise the stern Captain Wilkens’ sharp features in this round, almost bald head.

  ‘I’m older than you, Mr Scott.’ He smoothed back his few grey hairs and nodded. ‘But you’re in remarkably good shape. You got over your nasty fall, I see.’

  ‘Yes, I did.’ In time Bryan Underwood Scott had become known as a block of ice who always seemed self-assured, never took his eyes off an opponent and always settled disagreements with well-founded rebuttals. Historical consideration and appeals to friendship were unknown concepts.

  After qualifying as a doctor he had set himself up as a specialist in gastric disorders, and in recent years had steadily cut down on both his research and his work as a sports doctor as he became more and more a businessman. His inveterate determination and lack of sentimentality had had its price. But never financially. At the time of his mother’s death four years ago he already had so much money that the six million pounds she’d left to be divided between him and his brothers and sisters hardly made a difference.

  The key word was licences. The right to produce pharmaceuticals, surgical instruments, components for scanners and spare parts for Japanese and American monitors. All in the service of health. A seemly limitless field where financial resources apparently were not subjected to the usual British moderation.

  Many uncomfortable business situations had arisen during this period, but nothing could compare with his total unpreparedness as he once again sat face to face with Captain Wilkens. A man for whom he’d had no reason to harbour warm feelings.

  ‘Of course I remember you, Captain Wilkens.’

  ‘Other circumstances. Other times.’ Clarence W. Lester folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in the conference chair. ‘It was a hard time for all of us.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Did you ever find out what had happened to your mate, Mr Scott?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And I suppose you’ve exhausted all possibilities?’

  Bryan nodded and looked towards the door. The Teasdale case had been shelved even before the Germans capitulated. Not until eight months later did Intelligence reluctantly admit that the Gestapo archives were in the possession of the Russians, and that the fate of SS officer Gerhart Peuckert would therefore remain unknown. Bryan could do nothing. James Teasdale was merely one of many. Not even his father’s political influence and numerous contacts had brought anything new to light. Since then Bryan had tried in vain to buy information. Gradually his bad conscience had lost intensity. And now twenty-eight years had elapsed.

  Wilkens attempted a look of commiseration.

  It was only a few steps to the door. Bryan deliberated as to whether he should take those steps and slam the door behind him. The feeling of nausea that had come over him was overwhelming. The nightmares had returned.

  ‘I told my son this very morning what an effort you made to obtain information about your friend. Have you been in Germany since?’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘That’s fantastic, considering your business, Mr Scott.’ Bryan didn’t react. ‘I say, I hope you’re not annoyed by my digging up the past.’ Wilkens seemed as if he already knew the answer, but he was mistaken. The meeting was over before the grandfather clock in the reception room had struck the half-hour. The two of them had wanted permission to produce generic drugs on Bryan’s licence. They didn’t get it. Only a few insignificant promises were made. A single order had sent to be evaluated by Ken Fowles, Mr Scott’s assistant. The father and son appeared crestfallen.

  They had been expecting more.

  By now, smoking a filterless Pall Mall was a rare event for Bryan.

  Despite the heat he turned up the collar of his cotton coat. Leaning against the wall, he looked over at the newsstand. The stream of people from Elephant & Castle Station was increasing steadily. Lunch hour was over.

  ‘I won’t be coming back today, Mrs Shuster,’ he’d told his secretary.

  This was unusual. Already now Laureen would be suspecting something was wrong. Even though his wife had never shown any particular interest in his changing moods and impulses, she had an inexplicable ability to sense when problems threatened to intrude on the safety of their home turf. And Mrs Shuster wasn’t the type who could hide her surprise when Laureen acted on her intuition and phoned the office. Bryan’s wife was a woman of many talents, which is why she could take credit for a major part of Bryan’s success. Without her, he would have drowned in moral qualms and self-pity.

  She was a fairly ordinary, average girl from Wales who had smiled at him once and had continued to do so, even though he hadn’t smiled in return.

  She’d taken special care of him after his fall down the stairs at the British field hospital. The girl’s name was Laureen Moore.

  The war had taken eight members of her close family. One brother died in her arms at the hospital while Bryan was looking on. Cousins, two brothers, an uncle, and then her father. Sadness still crept into her voice when she spoke of him. She was familiar with grief and left Bryan in peace with his. An important part of her was the realisation that life had to be lived and the past respected.

  Bryan loved her for this and much else.

  But the price had been that Bryan was left alone with his past, his nightmares, his experiences and his grief. They never visited the Teasdales. Though they lived only a few streets away, Bryan never spoke of the Teasdale family and its fate. Thus Laureen’s innermost thoughts and feel
ings remained her own, just as Bryan’s.

  When it came to the outside world, however, she was extremely capable of organising it for them both.

  ‘Why do you worry about rich people’s diarrhoea and intestinal disorders if it doesn’t interest you, Bryan?’ she’d said years ago, thus initiating a new epoch in their lives. ‘They’re always bound to hate you for depriving them of their expensive chocolate, cigars and whisky-and-sodas,’ she’d said simply, accepting with a laugh that they might have to live modestly from then on. Less than a week later Bryan had put his practice up for sale.

  At first he couldn’t make a living from his research, but Laureen never complained. Perhaps the knowledge that Bryan’s mother would be able to support them if necessary had been in the back of her mind. But without Laureen, the future would have been another.

  And when success finally came, it really came.

  ‘Oh, Dad!’ his daughter had groaned, when he finally established himself in London. ‘An office in Lambeth? It’s not exactly a district where people just drop by. Why not Tudor Street or Chancery Lane?’ Ann was a charming, straightforward girl, whose great interest in athletics – and especially its long-limbed exponents of the opposite sex – had in some inscrutable way come to mean that for some years, along with his research and his business, he also applied his expertise in the service of sport.

  Diets and the treatment of acute gastric trouble were his domain. When problems originated in the abdominal region, sports people went to him and not to their sports federation or Harley Street specialists.

  A good life, all in all.

  Bryan lit another Pall Mall and recalled Wilkens’ yellow fingers during the interrogations. He had not been a smoker himself in those days. He took a deep puff. Wilkens’ arrival on precisely that day had been quite an extraordinary coincidence.

  He allowed himself confrontations with the past only a few times a year, at most. He was still feeling the effects of the previous night’s nightmare. Even though the dreams were always different, the essence was always the same: He had failed James! The shame followed him around for days afterward. If he were at work, he usually walked the few hundred yards from the office over to the Imperial War Museum and drowned himself in its impressions. Here he found a colossal accumulation of misery and hardship that made personal sorrows seen unforgivably small. Centuries of blunders and thousands of years of spilled blood were symbolized by the monumental boasting of these buildings.

  But this time he didn’t feel like going.

  Delegates from the National Olympic Committee had phoned him at home in Canterbury the previous evening and asked if he would act as consultant for the medical team at the games in Munich.

  This was what had prompted the nightmare. For years he had turned down all invitations that involved travelling to Germany. He had pushed aside everything that might dig up old, unhappy episodes. All his investigations had arrived at the same conclusion: It was pointless. James was dead.

  Why continue to torture himself?

  And then came this invitation, the nightmare, and Wilkens’ visit – all within hours of each other. The committee had given him eight days to think it over. There was just about a month until the games opened. He’d had more time to think it over four years previously, when he’d been asked to join the group as consultant for acute gastric infections at the Mexico Olympics.

  Harper Road, Great Suffolk Street, The Cut. Everywhere the city was a whirlwind of activity, teeming with life.

  Bryan noticed none of it.

  ‘Bryan, are you telling me you’ve been shuffling around in this weather in that get-up, in Southwark besides, because you had to make up your mind whether or not to go to Munich? What for? You could have done that at home.’ Laureen’s teacup was about to overflow. ‘You know I’d try and persuade you not to go. But I imagine you can’t get out of it, can you?’

  ‘I imagine not.’

  ‘I’ve had enough of that kind of nonsense since Mexico.’

  ‘Nonsense?’ He looked at her. She’d been to the hairdresser’s.

  ‘Too hot, too many people. That idiotic schedule!’ She noticed how he was looking at her. Bryan looked away again.

  ‘It’s not hot in Germany.’

  ‘No, Bryan, but on the other hand there’s so much else. It’s so German!’ Laureen’s tea was spilling into the saucer.

  They had always shared a reluctance to travel. Laureen, because she was afraid of the unknown, and Bryan, because he feared being reminded of the all-too-known. So if they finally did travel, it was usually in isolated, English-speaking business environments.

  If Laureen couldn’t prevent Bryan travelling, she usually arranged to go with him and get it over with as quickly as possible, in a well-organised manner. That’s how it had been with many of Bryan’s business trips, and that’s how it was to be this time.

  The next day she produced their itinerary and tickets with her customary lack of enthusiasm. Her surprise was minimal when Bryan told her he’d decided to turn down the National Olympic Committee’s invitation after all. He didn’t want to go to Munich.

  His sleep that night was more troubled than it had been for years.

  Chapter 30

  The next morning Laureen was already in full swing.

  Ecstatic about having got out of the trip, she rushed around the house, taking measurements for new curtains for their silver wedding anniversary in the autumn. Bryan had already slipped away to the office. A couple of hours later they contacted him again. He gesticulated towards Mrs Shuster, who immediately got up and silently shut his office door. It was unusual for the committee to enquire more than once.

  ‘I’m sorry, but at the moment we are in the midst of a Europe-wide launch of a new fast-acting painkiller for gastric ulcers. I have to help draw up our sales strategy and select who we’ll be working with.’

  That was how the conversation ended. Basically what he said was correct. He was in fact busy planning a new sales drive and needed new agents. But Bryan had never had anything to do with the interviewing of new salesmen or distributors.

  In this case, however, he felt obliged to make an exception, simply to convert the white lie into truth.

  Ken Fowles, who was responsible for logistics, had selected only ten out of fifty potential distributors for an interview. This would be boiled down to four, each covering a specific geographical area.

  In Bryan’s eyes all the prospective distributors were equally good, and only rarely did he say anything during the interviews.

  Even though courtesy demanded Fowles ask his boss for his comments, there was no doubt it was he who would make the final decisions.

  On the second day an applicant by the name of Keith Welles turned up. A cheerful, slightly morbid man who, despite the seriousness of the situation, allowed himself to take the interview with a sense of humour. He’d waited most of the day and was the very last interviewee. It was clear that the ruddy-faced man would not be Ken Fowles’ choice. His prospective territory – Scandinavia, Germany, Austria and Holland – was far too important a market to be placed in the hands of anyone on a different wavelength to Fowles.

  ‘And what went so wrong with your previous sales district?’ Bryan asked, before his assistant could.

  Welles looked Bryan straight in the face. He seemed to have expected the question, though not from that quarter. ‘There were many reasons. When you’re a foreigner residing in Hamburg, your products need to be better than anyone else’s. If not, the Germans prefer to deal with a foreigner living in Bonn, or better still, with a German residing abroad. That’s just how the system works.’

  ‘And your products were no better than all the others?’

  ‘Better?’ He shrugged and looked away. ‘They were like most products. My field has been too limited the last couple of years to accommodate great new discoveries and miracles.’

  ‘Psychotropic drugs?’

  ‘Yes. Neuroleptic.’ Welles’ wry smile made Ken
Fowles shift impatiently in his chair. ‘And fashions change. Those types of chlorpromazine drugs are not exactly alpha and omega in the treatment of psychoses any more. I was caught napping. In the end my stock was too large, my outstanding accounts even bigger and chances of selling the product extremely slim.’

  Bryan remembered the drug when Welles named it. He knew many names for it, like Largactil and Prozil. But their common ingredient was in fact chlorpromazine. Several of the guinea-pig patients in the Alphabet House had faded away before his eyes under the influence of a medication that was very similar. Even though he’d managed to avoid taking it during most of the ten months he spent at the SS hospital, the after-effects of this drug’s precursor had nevertheless become part of Bryan’s everyday self for many years afterward. The very thought of it could still make him sweat, become dry in the mouth and feel restless.

  ‘You’re Canadian, Mr Welles?’ He finally managed to ask.

  ‘Fraserville, beside the St. Lawrence River. German mother, English father, French-speaking population.’

  ‘A good starting point for a career in Europe. And yet you don’t cover France. Why not?’

  ‘Too difficult! My wife would like to see me from time to time, Mr Scott. She’s wiser than I am.’

  ‘And she’s the reason you landed in Hamburg rather than Bonn?’

  Fowles kept glancing at his watch. He tried to smile. Welles’ story was completely irrelevant to the case at hand.

  ‘I took part in the 1943 Salerno Bay landings in Italy under McCreery’s 10th British Army. As a trained pharmacist I was an obvious choice for the medical corps. I was with them the whole way and wound up in Germany.’

  ‘And there she stood, waiting at the border.’ Fowles smiled until Bryan stopped him with a glance.

  ‘Certainly not. We met for the first time a year after the capitulation. I was attached to the reconstruction programme.’ Bryan let him speak. With this account, a number of previously unconsidered angles had presented themselves.