The Foreigners

by James Lovegrove

  A swift subsidiary search provided Parry with a list of each composer’s complete works, and it was while perusing these that he made what he at first thought to be the breakthrough he was looking for. His eye was drawn to the surname of the man who provided librettos for three of Mozart’s operas, Lorenzo da Ponte. Dagmar Pfitzner had been found at the Ponte da Ponte. Was the bridge named in tribute to the librettist? A quick consultation of an annotated New Venice tourist map confirmed that it was. Excitedly scanning the lists of works for further such conjunctions, he found that one of Debussy’s orchestral pieces was entitled La Mer. Was it not in sea water that Dagmar Pfitzner had met her end?

  This little spark of connection, so rapidly kindled, was just as rapidly doused by a sprinkling of common sense. No murderer, however artful, could have guaranteed that Dagmar Pfitzner’s shoe buckle would snag on kelp on one of the Ponte da Ponte’s piles. She might have ended up attached to any bridge on that canal. Equally, she might have floated under them all, unhindered, and ultimately been discovered kilometres away from the scene. The da Ponte link was coincidence. Had to be. And the same for the “sea” link. Coincidence. Random correspondences. Meaningless synchronicities. These things happened. Once, back when he was in the Met., Parry was called to three death scenes in the space of a single day. The three people involved had all perished in differing circumstances – a car crash, a stabbing, a heart attack – but the peculiar thing was that all three had shared the same name, or at any rate a name that was spelt differently but sounded the same. The first was a teenager whose first name was Lee, the second was a Chinese woman whose family name was Li, and the third body belonged to a man with the surname of Leigh. It wasn’t so bizarre, but it had his colleagues at the station whistling spooky TV theme-tunes at him for weeks afterwards.

  Well, he thought as he leaned back disappointedly in his chair, it had been worth a shot. Detective work was about narrowing down options, eliminating possibilities. Now, if nothing else, he could confidently say that he was not chasing after some cunning master criminal who was leaving a trail of clues in order to taunt and tantalise his pursuers. This was real life, after all, not bloody Resort-City Beat.

  All right. He had amused himself. Now was the time to think realistically.

  Thinking realistically, Parry realised he was no farther forward with the investigation than he had been two days ago when Dagmar Pfitzner’s body was discovered. Apart from acknowledging that the shinjus could be Triple-X actions, he was still, essentially, stymied. Bogged down. Dead in the water.

  Like Dagmar Pfitzner.

  The joke brought a mirthless twist to his lips.

  So, what now? Having searched for some kind of thematic motif running through the two shinjus and found none, what should he do next?

  The only answer his baffled, beleaguered brain could come up with was talk to Quesnel. He was floundering and he knew it. To be brutally honest – and hangovers had a tendency to make him brutally honest with himself – he had been floundering from the outset, pretty much. He had been confident that the case was within his ability to clear up. He was beginning to see how ill-founded that confidence had been. He had believed that even within the restrictions of Foreign Policy he could, through persistence and open-mindedness, achieve some sort of resolution to the situation. He was beginning to see how simplistic that belief had been. If the shinjus were suicides, then MacLeod was right: how could the FPP stop them happening? Of their own accord they would either continue or not continue. If they did catch on and become a macabre fad among Sirens and Foreigners, then the FPP could only sit tight and wait for the craze to run its course. And if that meant New Venice gained a reputation with the golden giants as the venue for a dubious Foreign/human practice and their numbers fell as a consequence, then that was what had to be. Likewise, if the shinjus were a murderous Triple-X protest, the FPP was also severely limited in its range of possible responses. It lacked the powers to prosecute a murder inquiry to the fullest possible extent, and the last time there had been a Triple-X cell active in the city the FPP had been able to unearth it thanks solely to Toroa MacLeod’s predecessor as head of the local Xenophobe chapter. Right now, another cell could be at work within New Venice, but unless its presence was betrayed by a tip-off, the FPP had no means of locating it, lacking both the resources and the authority to perform a thorough investigative sweep of the city. Triple-X knew this. Its members continually took advantage of the loopholes in Foreign Policy that enabled them to lurk within a resort-city like maggots in an apple, industrious yet unseen. It seemed they were caught and handed over to the mainland authorities only if the FPP got lucky and they were shopped by an insider or else the Triple-Xers themselves got unlucky and were discovered in flagrante. Parry could hope that either of these things might happen, but he would be foolish to count on it.

  So this was what it came down to. He was stuck. He was stumped. He was out of options. The pressure he was under was taking its toll. And it was about time he said as much to Quesnel. He could ask her to assign another captain to help with the case (though not van Wyk, please). He could even ask her to take the investigation off his hands altogether and bring in someone fresh to tackle it (though, again, not van Wyk). The main thing was, he ought to let her know that he had run into a wall. There was no shame in that, surely. She would understand. He wasn’t giving up on the case, merely acknowledging the impossibility of the position he was in.

  Was the commissioner at HQ today? Like him – spouseless, solitary, unattached – Quesnel often worked at weekends. He picked up the telephone receiver on his work board, summoned up an internal line from the onscreen menu, selected “Quesnel”, and was put through to the commissioner’s extension. He heard the busy signal, and the screen offered him the “Voicemail?” prompt. He hung up, stood up, and, with a certain heaviness of tread, made his way to the lift.

  The lift disgorged him on Floor Upper C, and he walked to the end of the corridor. Outside the door to the commissioner’s office, he stopped and put an ear to the wood panelling. He heard a voice, very faint. He knocked and opened the door, preparing his hands for an APOLOGY for the intrusion.

  The manufold never manifested. It was not Quesnel on the phone at her desk. It was van Wyk. The Afrikaner was seated in the commissioner’s chair, and was looking quizzically across the room at Parry, one hand masking the speaking end of the telephone receiver.

  “Yes?”

  Parry glanced around the room. There was no sign of Quesnel. “I came to see the commissioner. Mind telling me where she is?”

  Van Wyk gave an insouciant shrug. “Not here, obviously.”

  “Then what are you doing at her desk?”

  With a sigh, van Wyk removed his hand from the receiver and spoke into it. “As a matter of fact, Muhammad, the man himself has just walked in. Yes. OK, I’ll call you back later. Salaam.” He set the receiver back in its cradle, then leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk and steepling his fingers. “Well, well, well. Captain Parry. Or should that be ‘Battling’ Jack Parry, the Drunken Party Pugilist?” He mimed a punch. “How are we feeling today? Somewhat the worse for wear, I should imagine. The NACA Liaison was just filling me in about yesterday evening’s little fracas chez Fuentes. That’s quite a bump you have there on your forehead. I trust the other fellow came off worse.”

  “Have I missed something?” Parry retorted. “Have you been appointed commissioner and no one told me?”

  “Not at all, Parry, not at all. I often sit in for Céleste. I’m surprised you don’t know that. It reassures the commissioner to know that her desk is being manned when she herself can’t be there.”

  “Is that a fact? And you just sit in her chair and happily make phone-calls?”

  “As it happens, it was the NACA Liaison who phoned me. Or rather, he was phoning Céleste in order to report your, as he himself put it, puzzling behaviour last night. Really, Parry. In uniform and all! Hardly a credit to the badge, I should say. I sup
pose that’s why you came to see the commissioner. To explain yourself.”

  “No, I came to... Actually, it’s none of your business why I came. Are we expecting the commissioner at HQ any time today?”

  “She should be in later. Around midday.”

  “I’ll talk to her then.” Parry turned on his heel.

  “Oh, by the way, Parry.”

  Parry looked round.

  “Good job on the shiatsus.” The Afrikaner’s eyes twinkled like two malevolent stars. “Telling Céleste there was nothing to worry about. Nicely done.”

  You odious little...

  Parry steadied himself. “Van Wyk,” he said, “you have no idea how complex and difficult this case is. You have not the first inkling what I’m up against.”

  “The Constitution. That’s what you’re up against.”

  Parry, of course, had been coming to this unwelcome conclusion himself, but he would rather have had both hands lopped off than admit so to van Wyk. “It’s simply that this case has no precedent in FPP history and no obvious explanation. Given which, I think any captain in my position would be experiencing the difficulties I am.”

  “Any captain except one who’s convinced these are murders.”

  “Not this again. Van Wyk, I’ve never said these aren’t murders.”

  “But you remain reluctant to accept the possibility, and while you continue to do so, your investigation continues to limp along like a lame horse.”

  “I’ve dealt with this investigation to the very best of my abilities.”

  “Letting Céleste stand up in front of the press and make a fool of herself? You call that the very best of your abilities?”

  “What went wrong there was due to circumstances beyond my control...”

  The words tailed away.

  Could it have been? Yes. Yes, it could have.

  Narrowing his eyes, he aimed an index finger at van Wyk. Suddenly it was all perfectly clear to him. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You did it. You erased the message from her work board.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Oh, do me a favour. The message I left Quesnel early Thursday morning advising her to abort the press conference. What, did you sit there and listen to it as it was coming in and then think, I’ll get rid of that?”

  “I honestly have no idea what you’re on about. Thursday morning?”

  “Why, van Wyk?” Parry was moving towards the desk. “Why would you do such a thing?”

  “Really, Parry, this is ridiculous.”

  “Why would you try and sabotage me like that?”

  “Sabotage?”

  “To make me look stupid? A liar?”

  “Parry...”

  Parry halted at the desk. A two-metre width of dark-blue crystech separated him from van Wyk. The Afrikaner was looking perplexed. Perplexed and – yes, was that not a flicker of guilt in his eyes?

  “But you must have realised I’d speak to Quesnel later and tell her about the message,” he said. “You must have realised she’d believe I left it, even if I didn’t have Shankar and Kadosa as witnesses. So if you were trying to make me look incompetent, it was a pretty half-arsed attempt.”

  “But why would I want to make you look incompetent?”

  “Do I have to spell it out for you?”

  “I think you do.”

  “Because you want this investigation for yourself. You’ve wanted it right from the start.”

  Van Wyk lifted his shoulders and spread out his arms, the gesture of an eminently reasonable man. “Parry. For one thing, although we may not see eye-to-eye on many subjects, I am, I assure you, on the same side as you. I want to see this situation resolved as much as you do. You have to believe that. And that’s why all this talk of me sabotaging you is absurd.”

  “It may seem absurd to you, but –”

  “For another thing –”

  “But to me it’s –”

  “For another thing,” van Wyk said, firmly, “on Thursday morning I came in to HQ after Céleste. I popped in to see her when I arrived and she was already at her desk. You can ask her. I’m sure she remembers.”

  Parry opened his mouth to respond, but could think of nothing to say.

  “Yes. You see? So you should be a little more careful, I feel, before you go bandying about this sort of baseless accusation. But then, on current showing, ‘careful’ is a word that can hardly be applied to you. It’s clear you’re under a lot of strain, Parry. You might wish to consider a session with one of the in-house counsellors. I could set up an appointment for you if you’re too English to do it yourself.”

  Parry seethed with contempt. “Screw you, van Wyk.”

  “How eloquent.”

  “No, really. Screw you, you sycophantic turd.”

  “Parry, I think you should leave before this becomes any more unseemly.”

  “‘Unseemly’. I should give you ‘unseemly’. Right here and now. I should give you a right ‘unseemly’ seeing-to.”

  “Oh dear.” Van Wyk shook his head like a disappointed teacher. He did not believe the threat. Neither did Parry. “This is exactly what I was talking about. The strain. Perhaps I should recommend to Céleste that she take you off the investigation.”

  Parry slapped the desk. “I can handle the investigation. I am going to handle the investigation.”

  “Not if you continue with this inappropriate behaviour, you aren’t.”

  “Just watch me.”

  “Oh, I am, Parry. I’m watching you very closely indeed.”

  Parry, leaning across the desktop, glared at van Wyk. Van Wyk returned the glare with a look of calculated contempt.

  Very slowly, Parry nodded, then broke the eye-contact, turned and left the room.

  29. Resolution

  ON THE WAY down in the lift, he reflected ruefully on what he had just done.

  Screw you, van Wyk. Piece of genius, that was.

  He had played right into the man’s hands. Van Wyk now had more than ample evidence to present to Quesnel in order to get Parry removed from the shinju case (and himself, doubtless, put in charge of it in Parry’s stead). In fact, even if van Wyk had resorted to the chicanery of erasing the voicemail message, he really need not have bothered. Parry, it seemed, was quite capable of appearing incompetent without help from anyone else.

  But, said a small voice in the back of his mind, wasn’t this what he had wanted anyway? To be absolved of responsibility for the investigation?

  No. Not like this. Not by being forced to surrender up the case just because of a couple of lapses in judgement.

  Indeed, perversely, bloody-mindedly, Parry was now more determined than ever to stick with the investigation. He would struggle on with it, and if Quesnel tried to take him off it, he would fight tooth-and-nail to remain involved. He refused to give van Wyk the satisfaction of seeing him fail. Absolutely refused.

  He re-entered his office, fired with renewed zeal, ready to re-examine the facts of the case once again, turn them upside-down and inside-out and back-to-front, scour them like a prospector panning an already well-sieved portion of stream-bed mud for the few grains of hidden gold it might yet contain.

  His good intentions were derailed by the voice message that was waiting for him on his work board.

  Not even a message, exactly. More a summons.

  30. Suspended Cadence

  ANNA DID NOT take her Bononcini sunglasses off as the waiter ushered Parry to the table. She kept them on as Parry sat down opposite her. She kept them on even after the waiter had brought over menus. The sunlight was intense up on the Alto Rialto, but the Touching Bass, one of a dozen restaurants and brasseries on the concourse, benefited from the protection of a large canvas awning, stretched trampoline-tight overhead. Parry realised, therefore, that he was being punished. By screening her eyes from him with the Bononcinis, depriving him of the sight of them, Anna was consigning him to a kind of inverse purdah.
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  “Hungry?” she enquired.

  “What do you recommend?”

  “The steak’s good here.”

  “It’s a bruise, not a black eye.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “A raw steak’s supposed to be good for... Never mind.”

  Now was obviously not the time for humour, however inept. Parry bent forward and inspected the menu. He tried to make sense of the words in front of him but was unable to concentrate. All he could see were lines of print, nothing intelligible. Knowing Anna, she would prolong this. Make him suffer before she forgave him. But she would forgive him, he was in no doubt about that. He had disgraced himself but not, he thought, irredeemably.

  “I could do with something a bit lighter anyway,” he said.

  “Yes,” Anna replied. Neutrally. Inscrutably.

  The waiter returned a minute later to take their order.

  “I’ll have the goat’s cheese filou parcels, please,” Anna said.

  “Certainly, Mrs Fuentes. Sir?”

  “Yes. Me, too.” Parry disliked goat’s cheese – nothing to do with the taste of the stuff, just the fact that it originated from so unappealing a beast – but he could not think of what else to have, and hoped, somewhat pathetically, that ordering what Anna had ordered might in some small way ingratiate him with her.

  “To drink?”

  “Mineral water for me,” said Anna. “I imagine the captain will have the same.”

  Parry nodded.

  The waiter left, and a silence fell between Parry and Anna. Parry felt it was best to wait for Anna to speak. She, however, showed no immediate inclination to do so. She toyed with the handle of a spoon for a while, rubbing at an imagined smear, then turned to gaze across to the Alto Rialto’s balustrade-hemmed perimeter. The Alto Rialto was a square concourse fixed between the summits of four central hotels, cantilevered on slender, cross-braced struts. It was said that you could see all of New Venice from here, although from the centre of the concourse, where the Touching Bass was, only ocean and sky were visible, two sharply delineated swathes of dark and light blue.