‘I wonder if you recognise this young woman, Dr Steiner?’
He looked as disconcerted as she’d hoped he would, fumbling on the bookshelf behind him for reading glasses, small as half-moons but more elegant. He took the photo, peering at it from a variety of distances. But that, as she realised, was another game.
‘It must be that young friend of Max, the daughter of the Barr household. Now, whatever was her name? Not Mavis, she was the one who stayed at home. Edna. Why are you showing me this?’
‘Because she didn’t stay at home, did she?’
He smiled coldly. ‘If you know, why do you ask me? Yes, Max will have told you about her. About her row with her vile and vicious father, about her escape here, about my providing her with accommodation. Because he is what I still think of as a gentleman, he will not have told you that she and I were briefly lovers, till she left me for a black American sergeant, whom she left for a French captain, whom she left for God knows whom. I have tried to trace her, he has tried to trace her. For all I know Inspector Rathman’s colleagues have tried to trace her.’ He bowed graciously towards Jo. ‘But she has disappeared as completely as last winter’s snow.’
Kate nodded. She was inclined to believe him, and would in any case be handing over the snapshot to Rathman before the day was over. ‘Thank you. Now, Dr Steiner, Inspector Rathman would be happy if he could take a statement from you in German.’
‘Why on earth should he?’
‘It is customary to ask the witness to give an account in his or her native language.’
‘Then there is absolutely no reason for the inspector to take a statement. My native language is Polish. As a young man I spoke Hungarian. Now I am also happy to speak English, French, Russian and German. I have given you a statement in English. Why should I want to make one in another language?’
‘Because you’ve made a notable omission in your English version. You’ve omitted to say anything about the role of Mr Horowitz. Neither, Dr Steiner, have you told us that in the absence of Mr Horowitz, Mr Cornfield forged his signature.’ She paused. He said nothing. ‘And what I really need to know, Dr Steiner, is whether Mr Horowitz was ever meant to be there, or whether all along you and Mr Cornfield planned an elaborate fraud.’ She stood up. ‘How much did he promise you to keep your mouth shut, Dr Steiner? If he stands to gain twelve million pounds, I hope it was a very great deal.’
‘We’re obviously talking extradition here,’ Jo said, placing a beer in the exact centre of the mat in front of her, ‘if your suspicions are correct.’
‘I hope they’re not. I really, truly hope they’re not.’ She drank deeply.
When they’d left Steiner’s flat, Jo had led her in the opposite direction from the U-bahn station, away from the imbiss he’d promised her. ‘I think you deserve a decent meal,’ he said, taking her elbow briefly to remind her she was looking the wrong way down a road. ‘A stroll through this park, which as you can see has the benefit of a canal.’
‘A canal! It’s wide enough to be a river!’ She leant over the parapet.
‘No, it’s not like your strange English waterways. Along here, we’ll find just the place.’
They did. A perfect place. The awning covering the outside seats might have been wished in from Greece – a trellis covered with vines. Beer, chilled to perfection, water, ditto, and a fresh salad. Perfection. If she could just believe she’d ever get her shoes on again.
Fortified by a meal too late to be lunch, too early to be dinner, Jo became a more engaging companion, though she never felt as if he particularly liked her. They strolled round a market dominated by great discs of Turkish bread and more of those wonderful fresh vegetables, stopping at last in another café to sink another beer.
‘Where are you staying?’ he asked without preamble.
‘In an Ibis not for from Tegel.’
His eyebrows suggested that while she could have done better, she could have done worse.
‘And how do you propose to occupy yourself this evening?’
‘By writing a watertight account of our interview with Steiner,’ she said.
‘And after that?’
‘An appointment with my earplugs and sleeping mask.’
‘Oh, come, Kate, Lizzie tells me you’re not yet thirty. You must have more stamina than that. How about I collect you and we head for a bar?’
It was neither courtesy nor coyness that made her ask, ‘Are you quite sure? I mean, I’ve taken a good deal of your time already, and—’
‘Absolutely. I promised Lizzie I’d look after you.’
Hell. ‘You have. You’ve fed and watered me and—’
‘Tell me, do your expenses run to taxis, or shall we stroll back to the U-bahn?’
‘I’m happy with the U-bahn.’ But still not happy with the invitation, or the manner of it.
‘If you’re ready, we’ll set off then. I’m afraid we find ourselves in the rush-hour.’
‘I thought I’d stop off in the centre: melt some plastic in Ka De Weh.’ Astrid had told her years ago that it was worth a pilgrimage.
Looking at his watch he shook his head. ‘Window-shopping only, I’m afraid, by the time you get there. Now, give me that photo of yours. I’ll photocopy it and return it to you tonight. Meanwhile, I’ll write down for you the lines and the stations you’ll need …’
‘OranienburgerStrasse?’ Kate asked, looking around her as they emerged from the car park: true to his word, he’d picked her up from her hotel. ‘The name rings bells.’
‘It is the area for clubs and pubs,’ Jo said, again, she thought, with an edge to his voice. Maybe it was his normal inflection. But she wasn’t convinced it was.
She scratched her head. ‘Clubs wouldn’t have come into any conversation with Astrid. The woman who might have become my stepmother.’ She explained: he seemed mildly interested. ‘So how would I know about it?’
He stared at her, unhelpful behind the shades he was still wearing, despite the deep dusk. Remembering was important, wasn’t it? But he had already set them in motion, behind, as it happened, an exquisite young woman, dressed, unsuitably, perhaps, for the still baking weather, in an extravagantly cut Hamlet shirt and tight black trousers, atop high-heeled shoes. From time to time she’d toss back her blond mane. Except women didn’t usually have bums as neat as that, nor shoulders as broad. But the face, under its glowing make-up, was surely female. Wasn’t it?
At least there was no doubt about the gender of the next person to catch her eye. High heels, fishnets, a short skirt so full as to be a tutu – and a shock of black chest hair. Or the next, a young man sporting what an Elizabethan would have called a codpiece. She was jostled by others less defined: boys with breasts, women with male genitals bulging under tight jeans. The kniepe Jo drew her into was heaving with cross-dressers or transsexuals at various stages of their change. A couple on a tiny spotlit stage, a strong-shouldered man and a delicate young woman stripped inexpertly, their subsequent bored coupling suggesting that neither had been what they seemed.
It wasn’t long before Jo disappeared on to what might have ben called the dance-floor if you were optimistic about such things. Kate neither knew for certain nor ultimately cared the sex or the sexuality of the person who was all over him like a rash. From time to time the shades would glint in her direction but she contrived as best she could not to be seen to be returning a glance. Cool, that was what she must be, however much she might be seething underneath. Embarrassed? Not after her stint with the Met. Titillated? Not by the androgynous figure that tried to chat, then to touch her up. Jo and his partner disappeared from sight. The gents’? For a quick fuck? She shrugged, and tried to get another beer. It seemed she couldn’t, not unless she became a member.
‘I don’t think I qualify,’ she told the bar-person. She’d better make the dregs last. As long as she had a glass in her hand she had some semblance of justification for being here. But being a dry wallflower for much longer was so deeply unattractive sh
e allowed herself to think in terms of five minutes more before she slipped out and found a taxi. Observing the human condition was much more fun if you had someone to share your observations with. And she felt vulnerable in a way she’d not felt since her early days in the force. Damn Jo and his clever ideas.
Jo reappeared a minute before her unspoken deadline.
‘I need some air,’ she yelled, pointing at the door and setting off, not caring whether he followed or not.
He did. ‘You are not enjoying yourself?’
‘On the contrary, I find it immensely entertaining and instructive.’ She raised her hand at a slowly cruising cab. ‘Only one thing taxes me.’
‘Taxes?’
‘Troubles my brain. Your purpose in bringing me here.’ She opened the cab door. ‘Something Lizzie said, was it?’
He took off his shades and bit an earpiece.
The driver asked something she didn’t pick up – the accent, perhaps, from a different region. He repeated his question. Joe said something, ushering her in. To her amazement he followed, giving the driver directions.
‘There’s no need,’ she said. ‘And what about your car?’
He shrugged. No doubt the driver would bring him back. ‘My behaviour was bad,’ he said, his accent appearing for the first time that day.
‘Unusual. But I’m sure there was a reason for it.’ She fastened her seatbelt. Lizzie. That was the reason.
‘I like irony,’ he said. ‘I like the irony that Oranienburg was once the administrative centre for the concentration camps. Populated extensively in their early days by gays. Ever visited them? No? And the street named after Oranienburg is as you see it. I relish the ironic connection.’
‘And the ironic connection between me and that club? No, don’t tell me. Lizzie,’ she said. ‘She must have said something.’
‘She told me,’ he said quietly, ‘to make sure you got plenty of sex.’
‘And do you want me to pass any message back?’
He shrugged. ‘The message is in the medium.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kate escaped from Faro airport at about eleven-thirty to find the overwhelming heat blessedly tempered by a strong breeze. She’d no idea what public transport would be like in the Algarve. Her only visit before had been on a low-budget family holiday to a cheap and cheerful resort where they’d baked themselves silly on the beach. So it seemed sensible to drive across from Faro to Lagos, which was where Leon Horowitz lived. It would be more flexible to hire a car, and cheap, too, but after the oddities of the previous evening, she thought that for once she’d rather simply be taken, and haggled what seemed a ridiculously low fare out to the west.
And the taxi was air-conditioned! OK, it was too late to rehabilitate her suit, but she felt better. She was too busy gaping at the scenery to begrudge the driver his part in the vehicle roulette of the main road: a game in which her father had briefly displayed a terrifying desire to participate. There were far more concrete excrescences jumbled along what she remembered as a lovely coastline: accommodation for all those pale Northerners keen to acquire melanoma of the skin as quickly as they could.
The intense light started to assuage the sourness she still felt after Jo’s activities. It wasn’t just the quick sex that had fired him up, she was sure of that. He’d almost certainly taken something – coke, she rather thought – while he was with the young man at the club. Grovelling with apologies for his ungentlemanly treatment of her, he was, he’d assured her, quite happy to fuck with her if she wanted – provided she promised not to tell Lizzie. It had taken her rather longer than she’d liked to convince him that such chivalrous activity was quite unnecessary. And that her silence on the whole episode was guaranteed, whether or not he liked it. She was angry not just with him – who would have liked any part of her treatment? – but with Lizzie for her part in it, even if she could hardly blame Lizzie for the way things turned out.
‘There is much to see here in Lagos,’ the policeman at the enquiry desk said. More perfect English to humiliate her. ‘Enjoy the tourist sights while we read this document of yours. You know that we are twinned the city in Nigeria. You will find the old slave market, also a statue to Henry the Navigator and the museum well worth a visit.’ In his way he was as impenetrable as Jo had been. Courteous, charming, and immovable. He would show Lizzie’s shady letter to his superior, who was currently at lunch and who was the only person who could deal with it. No, they had no record whatsoever of Detective Inspector King’s telephone call – did Kate know whether it had been in English or in Portuguese?
Kate only knew she was hungry. Was there somewhere close by where she could eat?
‘Any one of the restaurants in the town.’ And she could return at three.
Three! Did they take a siesta as well as a meal? And then she realised, as the heat engulfed her as she stepped into the street, a siesta was absolutely the most sensible option. No sun-hat, no sun block – she shouldn’t be out in the open at all. At least she could remedy those omissions, even if she couldn’t remedy those of that bloody commission rogatoire.
So she could enjoy an icy beer and wonderful chicken piri-piri in a street café, and wander down to the broad esplanade to bask in the shimmering views of the river and chic boats heading for the sea. If only Graham were there: Lagos was as full of couples as Kings Heath, and far more romantic to boot. The thought of him brought her to her feet. There must be some tiny gift she could take him, something to keep in his desk to show she’d thought of him. Nothing brazenly Portuguese lest anyone else see it. But something with quality, with style. Behind her was the town: she struck inland up steep steps to find a leather goods shop, full of delectable handbags and wallets. But she couldn’t give him a wallet, could she? And suddenly she wanted nothing for herself, either, to remind her of a time when she missed him so painfully.
Almost shouting at herself for her stupidity, she drifted back to the main shopping area, to buy the naffest mug she could find – for herself. There: at least she’d done something touristy.
‘And did you have an enjoyable lunch?’ the desk sergeant – if that was his title – asked her.
‘Very enjoyable, thank you. And did your superior—?’
‘I regret he has been detained. Now, have you visited the slave market?’
‘I have, and I’ve made the acquaintance of Henry the Navigator.’ What an act of faith; to set sail in a tiny ship heading simply for the horizon.
He nodded, then beamed. ‘The archaeological museum; have you visited that? There are extensive Roman remains, and some fascinating biological specimens: a dog with three eyes, a cat with two heads. Detective Sergeant, it is just a step across the street. May I suggest you cannot do better than to investigate that?’
Which was all she did investigate in Lagos: infinite numbers of fragments of Roman pottery, deposited rather than organised, wherever there seemed to be shelf-space, some fabulously embroidered church vestments, the church itself brilliant with gilded plasterwork, and some deformed animal foetuses, to which a smartly dressed young woman curator had specifically drawn her attention. As Luis da Ponte, the senior policeman fresh from his lunch explained, as he poured her coffee, ‘Napoleon never conquered Portugal. His armies stormed across the rest of Europe, Senhorina Kate, but thanks to your forebears and mine, he never took our tiny country. So the Code Napoleonique does not, alas, operate. All the commissions rogatoires in the world would be inadequate to persuade me to let you interview Senhor Horowitz while he lives here. To see him, you will have to seek permission from your Foreign Minister, who will speak to our Internal Affairs Minister, who will speak to the Chief of Police and a team of lawyers to determine whether such permission will be given.’ Luis smiled, his teeth white in one of the most handsome faces Kate had ever seen, dashes of white hair at his temples an additional artistic touch rather than a sign of ageing. Not that he was much more than thirty-five anyway. ‘I am desolated. But we do not extradite even m
urder suspects unless all the paperwork is absolutely in order.’
Luis insisted on running her back to Faro himself, pointing out with pride and delight the new bridge at Portamao and various delights on the road. Since his car was air-conditioned and he found a radio station called Nostalgia, which played her father’s favourites from the sixties, she didn’t argue. He even phoned a tour courier friend to pull strings to get her on a flight the following day. Finally, having booked her into not the Ibis she’d planned but a smaller place he assured he would be altogether more pleasant he bought her a drink.
As he leaned forward to pass her olives, two thoughts occurred to her simultaneously. That it would be a delight to flirt your way into bed with such a gorgeous man, and that he was bound to be married.
And what, in any case, was she doing, imagining making love with anyone but Graham?
If Luis’ courier friend hadn’t told her to present herself at the airport an hour before the regular check-in time, if sea mist hadn’t engulfed the airport creating delays, if there’d been somewhere to sit, somewhere to get a drink during what seemed an interminable wait – well, she probably still wouldn’t have worked out the best way to frame her report on the previous two days’ events. If she told the truth, no one would come out of it smelling of roses. If she told the whole truth, Lizzie in particular would stink of horse manure. Rod would be angry with Lizzie, maybe passing information to her line manager. But Rod would also be furious that Kate hadn’t checked and double-checked what Lizzie was up to. Even Dave Allen had warned her about Lizzie’s reputation for cutting corners, her underlings not herself carrying the inevitable can.
Meanwhile, she also had to plan her return to Birmingham. The courier had got her a flight, sure, but it was to Glasgow, not exactly the heart of England. Glasgow to Birmingham – what were the options?
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