Mr. Miller

by Charles den Tex

  ‘One moment,’ she said, and she pushed a button to put the caller on hold. Van Waayen and Breger were now standing in the corridor.

  ‘Huib, we’ll see each other the day after tomorrow at Kolf’s farewell party. You’re coming, too, right?’ Van Waayen was backing into the secretary’s room.

  Huib Breger?

  ‘You bet,’ said Breger. His voice could be heard from the corridor, and with every word he spoke I thought I recognized a certain sound, a tone. ‘And you’ll talk with the States, okay? I can count on that?’

  I knew I had heard that voice before, but I couldn’t remember where.

  ‘What do you think?’ said Van Waayen, and he laughed. He waved and turned around. To me. To his secretary.

  ‘What I think is what I’m asking,’ said Breger from the corridor. ‘Otherwise I’d ask something else.’

  I stiffened in my chair. It was the same remark I had heard in the corridor the night before, pronounced in exactly the same loud, flat way. Breger was one of the men who had removed the body of Ina Radekker from the building last night.

  Breger and Van Waayen?

  Questions flashed through my head, none of which I could ask here. I tried to concentrate on the upcoming conversation, but no matter how hard I tried I kept hearing that voice. And every time I heard the voice, I saw Ina Radekker lying there. First dead and then gone.

  One of the men who had done it had just paid a visit to a partner of the firm. Coincidence, perhaps (everything in life can be a coincidence), but it could also have meant something quite different. What I really wanted to do was stand up and run away, but Van Waayen was coming toward me. On his face was the unmistakable expression of a manager who’s about to do some managing and is really up for it. His secretary, gesturing in the background and frustrated because she wasn’t getting the attention she wanted, slammed her fist down on the desk just as Van Waayen was about to say something to me.

  ‘WHAT?’ he asked irritably. ‘You know I’ve got an appointment now with Michael and that …’

  ‘I have the Secretary-General of the Ministry of the Interior here on hold,’ Rachel said. She was imperturbable. ‘Shall I ask him to call back later?’

  Van Waayen quieted down. The Secretary-General of the Ministry of the Interior was a client with a capital C. ‘Eberhuizen?’ he said.

  Rachel looked at her watch. ‘Three minutes so far,’ she said. ‘If he hasn’t already hung up.’ She pressed the button and put on her professional voice. ‘Mr. Eberhuizen? Yes, I’m sorry you had to wait, but Mr. Van Waayen had to step out for a moment … yes, we don’t mention those kinds of things, you understand … exactly … you’re so right …’ She laughed. ‘I’ll put you through.’ She pushed a few more buttons and the phone rang in the inner office.

  Van Waayen reacted immediately. ‘Just a minute,’ he said to me. ‘Really, this won’t take long.’ He hurried to his office and shut the door behind him.

  ‘What a pain,’ said Rachel, and she laughed again. ‘The old bathroom trick. Works every time. Can I get you a cup of coffee? “Just a minute” is a euphemism, you realize. In fifteen minutes you’ll still be here. Black or white?’

  ‘White,’ I said, and I was glad there was at least one simple answer I could give that morning.

  Van Waayen was looking at me from the door to his office. Defiant. Scowling. He didn’t beckon and he didn’t move. He just stood there—legs slightly apart, one hand in his pants’ pocket, the other playing with his cell phone—and looked at me. It was as if he were seeing something he didn’t understand, something that was beyond his expectations, something he wished he could dissect simply by looking at it to see what was inside. I couldn’t tell whether he loathed me or whether he didn’t. I just waited, heart pounding, to hear what he had to say.

  He didn’t say anything.

  With far more effort than necessary I succeeded in standing up and taking a couple of steps in his direction. I am not tall. Not as tall as Gijs. Not even as tall as Jessica, certainly not when she’s wearing heels, and Jess loves a good pair of heels. I’m one metre seventy-nine, dark curly hair, dark eyes, heavy eyebrows, straight forehead, little conviction. I’m not much good at anything, but I don’t give up easily. My muscles were stiff and my hands and feet tingled because I had been sitting too long in a cramped position. Nerves. I gave my limbs a shake to try to get the blood circulating until I realized how unutterably stupid I must have looked, flapping my hands around like that.

  Van Waayen ignored my performance and took a couple of steps toward me until we were standing eyeball to eyeball. It was a few seconds before he spoke.

  ‘Is this some kind of campaign, Bellicher?’ he asked. ‘If it is, it’s a doozy.’

  Without waiting for my response he turned around and walked into his office. Soon he was back with a piece of paper in his hand.

  ‘Because guess what? The Ministry of the Interior—no, wait a minute, what am I saying—the Secretary-General of the Ministry of the Interior wants a communications consultant, and of all the communications consultants walking around in this country (and there are quite a few), the good secretary has his eye on one in particular. Just one! A thirty-one-year-old consultant is what he wants. Yes, indeed! Can you believe it?’

  He pushed the slip of paper in my face.

  ‘Tomorrow morning, ten o’clock, in The Hague. One false move and you can keep on walking.’

  I took the paper.

  ‘Have you got that?’ he asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘Good. Until you bring me that client, I don’t want to see you again,’ he said, and he kept his eyes on me until I left the room.

  12 Bellilog 06.17.04

  Gijs is hanging over my desk. He puts an old plastic shopping bag on top of my papers, this time an ordinary red-and-white one from another supermarket, the Edah. He always does this. His big hands fiddle with his glasses. He makes movements that I associate with him, that I see almost every day. I know he’s going to fold the arms of his glasses in and out three times before he puts them in his inside jacket pocket. I know it and he does it. Just like putting that bag on my papers. And I know that he’ll start picking on the cuticle of his right middle finger. And he does. The more he picks, the more problems he has with the skin above the nail. I know this, just as he knows things about me that I’m not aware of. And as he stands there waiting before he says anything, I wish I felt as comfortable with myself as he does.

  If you ask the right person, you can be saved. Maybe it’s only for a moment, but that’s already a lot. At least it is for me. I’m an ICT orphan. My parents are so out-of-touch they don’t even live in the same dimension any more. Technology makes you lonely, and we’ve only just begun. Without Jess, without Gijs, I’d never make it. Look mom, no hands! Better yet, don’t look.

  Mail to: Jess

  Subject: family

  you still there?

  things here falling apart

  kisses,

  m.

  13 0.17 seconds

  Sometimes a plan works too well. Like now: suddenly I wasn’t out on the street at all but working under even greater pressure. All the clients I had called the day before to postpone their appointments, thinking I would never be seeing them again, were now firmly inscribed in my date book. Every one of those clients would expect me to make up for lost time. That was normal. In a week I’d be up to my eyeballs in meetings and deadlines. But before then I’d have to manage to ingratiate myself with the Secretary-General of the Ministry of the Interior. How Gijs had been able to enlist the aid of such a mega-client was beyond me. Gijs had his own reasons for doing what he did, and what he had done for me today was invaluable. I realized that, just as I knew that someday I’d have to make it up to him in an appropriate way.

  Not now, though.

  Now I had to make the best use of the time I had. I didn’t even want to think about clients and assignments until I found out what had happened to Ina Radekker, until I kne
w what had taken place on Wednesday night and who had been involved. And the simplest way to get started was to go to her department and ask who Ina Radekker was. And where she was.

  The name Finance & Control had a militantly financial ring to it, as if money were the measure of all things—which it is. In the west wing of the third floor, however, there’s little of that in evidence. You can always find somebody in the staff areas, which are generally off-limits to clients. There’s a staggered lunch hour, although the vast majority of the employees head for the canteen at twelve-thirty. Which makes it the most peaceful time in the building.

  A deep silence prevailed in the department. Three-quarters of the rooms were empty. Here and there someone was staring at a monitor with great concentration or had a phone to their ear. No one asked me any questions; I don’t think anyone even saw me. I kept on walking unhindered, in search of Ina Radekker’s desk.

  Number 3.026 was a spacious room with three desks, all of them unoccupied. At two of the desks the computers were on and there were obvious signs of work going on. The third desk was straightened up, almost empty except for a couple of papers. The computer was off and there was no indication that anyone was working there today. If Ina was gone, then this was her desk.

  I thumbed through the papers: a couple of internal memos on the use of the photocopy machine and amended instructions concerning the safeguarding of documents and administrative data. There was a desk date book with appointments in it. Nothing this week, nothing next week either. Ina Radekker didn’t have the kind of job that required conferring a great deal with others. She had no clients and she had no suppliers, she didn’t have to keep track of her hours and she didn’t have to drive fifty thousand kilometres a year to always be where the client wanted her to be. She did her work at one place, at one desk. Her work was not billable, her hours were her working hours. If she worked longer, that was overtime, a concept unknown to consultants.

  I opened her desk drawers. In the first drawer there was nothing special. Paper clips, stapler, staple remover, some pens and pencils, ordinary office supplies. The next drawer contained a box of blank computer disks and a stack of CD-ROMs. I flipped quickly through the CDs. Each and every one was a software CD with extra programs, all for the processing of administrative data. In the bottom drawer were some folders and a couple of large, thick envelopes. I took them out and examined the contents. They contained print-outs of financial accounts that, at first glance, had nothing to do with the company. I saw the abbreviation ‘MF’ somewhere with a great many names and numbers that meant nothing to me. Probably a private job she was doing on the side along with her regular work. I put the papers back in the folders and envelopes and took everything with me.

  Two doors further on I saw a woman concentrating intently on her work. I knocked briefly and walked in. She was about forty, small and spindly. She had short, straight, blond hair and a look of grim determination on her face, with only the occasional flash of a smile. She looked up from her work and asked me what I wanted.

  ‘I’m looking for Ina Radekker,’ I said. ‘Do you know where she is? Or is she just on her lunch break?’

  The woman laughed.

  ‘Well, she may be having lunch, but not here. Ina is gone, so, uh …’

  ‘Gone?’

  ‘On vacation.’

  ‘Huh?’ It came out before I was aware of it.

  ‘Yes. Try Crete,’ she said. ‘Otherwise she’ll be back at her desk in three weeks. If you can wait that long.’

  ‘Crete?’

  Apparently Ina’s departure for the Greek island was entirely in keeping with the department’s vacation schedule, which everyone had known about for months. Five-thirty a.m. flight, four o’clock check-in. No one expected to hear anything from her until she returned in mid-June. Except maybe a postcard.

  ‘And if that’s too long for you, you’ll have to make do with me,’ she said, tossing me another grim-faced look.

  ‘Are you angry?’ I asked.

  ‘Because you’re here to complain about Ina, right?’ she huffed. ‘To grovel with that little smile of yours. You’re all like that. Consultants. Butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth. Most people come here to tell us there’s a problem with the figures, and of course it’s our fault. But we’re just auditors, and if things don’t add up we let them know. It’s almost like no one can count anymore these days.’

  ‘And we can’t,’ I said. ‘Any self-respecting consultant knows that one plus one is three, so there’s no hope for us.’

  I tried to reach Gijs, but he was busy, tied up in meetings. I left a message on his voicemail to let him know that I’d be at Vak Zuid between six and seven. Vak Zuid is the pub behind the Olympic Stadium. It was usually packed and noisy, but it was also close by and easy to get to. Everybody went to Vak Zuid and had been for years, and the more the southern quarter of Amsterdam grew the busier it got. There weren’t that many other places around.

  I took the laptop out of my cart, re-connected to the network and checked my e-mail. Twelve messages. Clients, clients and more clients. Every day they sent entire packets of information. Reports, plans, research, measurements, Power Point presentations, spread sheets, folders, annual reports—everything got dumped into the e-mail and sent off. It often made things needlessly complicated, because nobody knew what was important and what wasn’t.

  The last e-mail was from Kurt. ‘I see you,’ it said. And there was an attachment: a photo of Kurt, a portrait with eyes full of expectation and a smile that could bring you to your knees. Literally. I knew all about it.

  Irritated, I clicked the photo away and saved it on my hard drive. The irritation itself stuck with me. I could feel it in my body, my back and my neck. I was angry at myself more than at Kurt. I opened the e-mail again and sent a reply: ‘I see you too. I need a little space right now.’

  I began searching the HC&P network for Huib Breger but I couldn’t find him in any of the company’s departments. Not a single one. That surprised me. I thought about the encounter that morning, about the way Van Waayen and Breger talked to each other. It was clear that the two men were well-acquainted and spent a lot of time together. No one accompanied Breger out of the office, either, neither Van Waayen nor his secretary. They didn’t even attempt to do so, which meant that he wasn’t just a visitor. Or at least that he was part of the company, since it was a strictly kept policy that visitors were to be accompanied on their way out until they had passed through the security gate. Too much had been stolen from the building in recent years—not just computers and equipment, but the contents of entire rooms had been removed, including desks, chairs and cabinets. It wasn’t long before the building passes and security gates came along, as well as the policy that unknown persons were no longer allowed to roam through the building alone. And this included guests of management.

  So Breger was not a guest, not an outside visitor, and that meant that he had to have a building pass and that somehow he had to be registered in the company’s hierarchy as an employee, high or low. But he wasn’t. Stranger yet was that he could be in the building and leave it in the middle of the night. That, too, meant that he and the other men had to have passes in order to get in and out of the building. You couldn’t even get out of the parking garage without a pass.

  In silence I gazed at my screen, mentally following the computer’s exasperating logic. If the computer gave an answer that didn’t make sense, it would have to be correct nonetheless because the computer’s answers were always correct. In that case it would have to be the question that was wrong, a fact that it sometimes took a long time to grasp.

  No matter how hard I looked at the screen, I couldn’t get any further. It might mean that not all the people with a pass were registered with the company. That was a simple conclusion, and once I had come to it I could understand it. There were all sorts of people in the security service, the cleaning service, the canteen and the maintenance services who were not employed by HC&P but by the fi
rm’s suppliers. You’d never be able to find those people in the HC&P network. Logical. But if Huib Breger worked for one of those companies, why was he so friendly and buddy-buddy with Van Waayen? Dries van Waayen detested the cleaning and canteen staff. Their vulgarity offended his dignity. He could make the occasional joke with such a person, but usually no one laughed because they rarely understood his jokes. Dries’s sense of humour had to do with vested interests and positions, which was completely lost on the janitorial types. They wiped the floor with that kind of pretentious crap.

  I clicked the icon at the bottom of the screen and surfed to Google. The name ‘Breger’ brought up thousands of hits. Far too many. I tried the last name and first name together, ‘Huib Breger,’ and 0.17 seconds later I had the complete results of my search operation: seven hits, all seven for the same Huib Breger, student of computer science at the University of Johannesburg, member of the rowing team and bearer of the suggestive title ‘Man you would most like to have ice cream and chocolate sauce with in a public sauna, 2003.’ He even had his own website: Huibbreger.sa. I clicked on the link and browsed through the blog of a nerd and a sports freak, an endless collection of brief messages, observations, comments and photos that he posted as a report of his life. Just like I did on bellilog.com. In the upper right-hand corner of the screen was a large button: mail me. So I did. I wrote that I had bumped into a man here of about fifty years old with the same name as his, and I asked him whether this person happened to be related to him.