Webster gave his soup a stir with his chopsticks. Bright little cubes of tofu swam about in the broth. He frowned, not understanding her. “Where does that come in?”
“I don’t want anyone throwing you off a roof.”
“That’s silly.”
“Two of you had a conversation in Berlin. A few weeks later one of you is dead. Why aren’t you a loose end?”
He laughed. “They don’t kill advisers. They never have. It’s too much trouble. And someone else would just pop up in my place.”
Elsa didn’t say anything. She looked down at the counter, played with her chopsticks.
He put his hand on her back. “Are you worried?”
“I don’t like it. I know you when you get like this. It’s better when you have a case you don’t like.”
“If I thought I was in danger I’d stop. But I’m not. Really. After what happened in Budapest there’s no way they’ll do anything to me. How would it look?”
“Would they care?”
“Perhaps not. But killing an Englishman’s a pain in the arse. The police actually investigate. They’re not used to it.”
More food came. Elsa took a skewer and began to push the meat onto her plate with her chopsticks.
Without looking at him she said, “Don’t you think you should stop?”
“Yes and no.”
“For decency’s sake.”
He hesitated. “I found an article that Inessa wrote about him. Two months before she died. I never knew about it.”
“So?”
“With him it all makes sense. He had enough to lose. And friends all over government. He could have done it.”
“You think he killed Inessa?”
“He’s a candidate.”
Elsa shook her head and sighed. “This is new. But familiar.”
“It’s not important, in a way.” He watched her raise her eyebrows in response. “I know I’m never going to know. It’s not a crusade.”
“No. It’s a quest. For some sort of absolution.”
“I shouldn’t have just left. You know I regret that.”
“They threw you out.”
“I mean Russia.”
Elsa nodded. “So this is about justice.”
Webster could feel his ground crumbling. “I don’t know.”
“You attack the big Russian and hope he was responsible.”
“He deserves it anyway. And what if he was? It looks like he’s capable of it.”
“What if he wasn’t? What do you have? An article and a hunch?”
“If he goes down, things will come out,” he said. “He won’t be protected anymore. It could all come out.”
“And how likely is that?”
Webster was quiet. One of the things he loved about Elsa, but didn’t always enjoy, was that she allowed him no space to deceive himself. Only in this respect did her work spill over into their lives. She was a psychologist who worked with families, and her commitment to honesty never waned.
A waitress came to clear their bowls and asked if they would like more sake. Elsa smiled distractedly and politely told her no.
“Sweetheart,” she said, leaning in to him and resting her hand on his arm, “you don’t owe him anything. Gerstman. Just like Inessa. Ike’s right about that.”
“I think I do.” He picked up his cup, saw it was empty and set it down again. “It would be nice if someone was held to account. Just once. If not for Inessa then for everyone else.”
Elsa said nothing. He went on. “Look, I’m going to go to Berlin and see his widow. I have to. And then I see the client next week. He may put a stop to it in any case. We haven’t gotten very far.”
Elsa nodded slowly. “OK. OK.” She looked him in the eye. “But you have to promise me that if it gets worse, you stop. If you think even for a second that you’re in danger, you tell me, and you stop.”
He smiled. “Of course.”
“I’m serious, Ben.”
“I know. I love you for it.”
She laughed, relenting, shook her head, and looked around for the waitress. “We need another drink.” She turned back to him. “Wouldn’t it be nice to be a baker, or a gardener, or a bank manager? Don’t you think? Something simple?”
“I’ve been thinking just that. All week.”
NINA’S STREET WAS NARROW for Berlin, the buildings tall, and dotted along it were a handful of discreetly expensive shops. You had to look carefully, thought Webster, to realize just how exclusive a neighborhood this was; not showy, but solid, and moneyed. Webster paid his driver, found number 23 and posted the letter through Nina’s letterbox. He had little to do now except wait. He decided to walk back to the hotel. In a few minutes the arbitration hearing will begin in Paris, he thought, and wondered whether he should be there.
This time he took in the city. The day was cold and icy gray and cast a dull, even light over the wide streets. He walked from Charlottenburg, where the wealthy lived in their town houses, through the old western center, shabby now, a mess of trams and cars and roadworks, and up to the Tiergarten, where the silver birches had lost all their leaves and reminded him of Russia, of walking in Izmailovsky Park with Inessa and her friends. She would have come here, he thought; she would have seen Nina. Inessa had never knowingly left a story unfinished.
By five he was beginning to think that he wouldn’t hear from Nina that day. Perhaps she had left early that morning for the university and hadn’t seen his note. He had made no clear agreement with himself about how long to stay in Berlin. He was due to fly to Paris to see Onder the following evening but he might well change it; the arbitration would go on all week and Onder would be there for much of it. If Nina didn’t respond should he see Prock? Against every instinct he probably should. He decided that he would write another note, and deliver it to Prock’s office so that he would have it the following morning. He delivered it that evening on his way to dinner.
A little before nine his phone gave a short chime to tell him that he had a text message. Mr. Webster. Please come to my apartment at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. Thank you. Nina Gerstman. So she was there. He realized at that moment that he would find it far easier to talk to Prock.
HE WOKE EARLY. By eight he had showered, shaved and dressed in a dark navy suit, white shirt and dark blue tie. Today was a day to look as grave as possible. As he left the room he looked at himself in the mirror. Was that the face he deserved? It looked honest enough to him, but he could hardly judge. His eyes were brown and candid, with specks of green and black; his hair, silver for years now and cropped short, suggested serious, responsible. There were enough flaws in his face to make it somehow convincing: a short scar on his chin where his beard didn’t grow, the nose not quite straight. He was plausible, certainly. But it was one thing to convince people that you were trustworthy, and quite another to deserve their trust.
At nine he stood outside Nina’s building and rang the doorbell for Flat 12. The sky was still dull. While he waited he looked through the glass doors into the entrance hall, cupping his hands around his eyes to keep out the light. Stone stairs, an art nouveau balustrade, an intricate tiled floor, marble lining the walls up to shoulder height. A woman’s voice asked him who he was and buzzed him in. An old lift in its iron cage took him up to the fourth floor and as he pulled the concertina gate back Nina was waiting for him.
She wasn’t what he had expected. His research had discovered that she was an academic, a physicist who lectured at Humboldt University, and he had pictured her as small and somehow scientific—glasses perhaps, mousy hair and practical clothes. In fact she was tall, almost his height, and dark, her eyes black and childishly full in a narrow face. She stood with her legs slightly apart, her calves full, her feet turned out like a dancer, and she wore black: a black skirt, black stockings and
shoes, a black cardigan over a gray blouse. Webster realized that he hadn’t been with someone in mourning since his grandfather had died ten years earlier.
“Frau Gerstman.” He found himself giving a slight bow of the head.
“Mr. Webster.”
“Thank you for seeing me. I hope I’m not intruding.”
Nina said nothing but gestured for him to follow her into the apartment. They walked down a long corridor with doors on either side, all closed. The floor was golden parquetry, and on the walls hung a series of color photographs of the modern buildings of Berlin: the Neue Nationalgalerie, the revived Reichstag, several buildings that Webster didn’t recognize. They were good, and he wondered whether Nina had taken them. Or Gerstman.
The corridor opened into a bright sitting room at the far end of the apartment with large windows on two sides. Here there were no photographs but many paintings, abstracts and portraits, hung in clusters.
“Would you like something to drink, Mr. Webster?” asked Nina. Her voice was low and dry. Webster thanked her, but no, he was fine. She sat down, quite upright at the front of a deep sofa, and Webster sat opposite in an armchair. On the glass table between them were sales catalogues for auctions of modern art in London and Paris. His chair was low and he struggled to find an attitude that seemed appropriate.
Nina looked at Webster. I wonder what she sees, he thought. In the light her face was pale but for the skin under her eyes, which was a deep purple gray.
“Thank you for seeing me. I’m grateful,” he said.
“I wanted to see you.”
“I wanted to say first how . . . how sorry I was to hear your news.” The words sounded thin and brittle as he said them.
“Thank you.”
“I heard it from your husband’s partner. He called me. He told me that . . .” He hesitated. “He suggested that my meeting with Dmitry might have brought about his death.”
Nina said nothing.
“It wasn’t my intention to cause anybody harm.”
Again, Nina didn’t reply, but looked at him steadily all the while. She was composed; Webster felt wholly uncomfortable. He couldn’t tell whether she was resigned or calmly furious. Eventually she said, “I don’t know why he died, Mr. Webster. I would like the Hungarians to tell me but I think they will not.” She paused. “Why do you think he died?”
“In a sense I barely knew him. I’m probably the last person who should say.” Webster shifted his position.
“But what do you think?”
“I have a sense that he was murdered.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because of what I hear from Hungary. Because it was a very strange way to . . . to end it. Because the Hungarians seem to have been quick to make up their minds.”
“I have the same sense. But I would like to know.”
“So would I.”
Nina had her hands clasped in her lap. She loosened them and scratched her forearm lightly.
“That is what I want to know from you, Mr. Webster. Why you want to know. In a way this is not your business. You met Dmitry once. You did not know him.”
Webster had anticipated this. He had an answer prepared, but now it hardly seemed adequate. As he began, a mobile phone began to buzz across a table in the corner of the room.
“Excuse me.” Nina stood and went to pick it up. “Gerstman.” She walked into the corridor, speaking softly. Webster could still make out what she was saying. The person on the other end of the call talked more than she did. “Ja,” he heard her say. “Nein, nicht jetzt. Ich bin nicht allein. Ja.” A long pause. “Das geht Sie nichts an. Ich wollte ihn sehen.” Webster’s German was still good enough to make some of this out. That’s not for you to say. I wanted to see him. “Ja, mir geht es gut. Morgen vielleicht. Oder Mittwoch. Ja. Auf Wiedersehen. Auf Wiedersehen.”
Nina came back into the room and sat down, putting the phone on the glass table in front of her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Just a friend.”
“You must tell me if you’d like me to go.”
“No, it’s OK.”
“Thank you.” Webster chanced what he hoped was a sympathetic smile; Nina did not return it. Her face was hard to read. It was stony, set, but not in anger; there was something else there. He tried again. “You asked me why I’m still interested. I’d like to stop the man responsible.”
Nina nodded. “And why are you here?”
He had anticipated this too. “I’m here because . . . I’m here to say sorry, for anything I might have done.”
“In my work, Mr. Webster, it is understood that you cannot see a thing without changing it. It is impossible to simply be an observer. So you have played a part, whatever it might be.”
“That’s true.”
“I will be open with you. I am not interested in what you did. Dmitry was never free of Russia. It followed him here. I do not think you brought it. He tried to stop it. He took out insurance. He was very careful. My only interest, all I want to do . . .” For the first time she looked down at her hands. “All I want is to know how he died.” Tears formed in her eyes. She wiped them away with the back of her hand and sat for a moment looking away from Webster, out of the window to the rooftops beyond. She took a deep breath and went on. “I do not know whether they are paid to stop investigating, or whether they do not care to. It must be a . . . how do you say it . . . it must be annoying to have a dead Russian from Berlin in your city.” She paused for a moment and looked at him. “But it is not logical. I know he did not send me that e-mail. I know it.” She leaned forward, rested her forehead in her hands and sat gently shaking her head.
Webster watched her. After some time she looked up at him.
“Frau Gerstman,” he said, “I have friends in Budapest who tell me what is happening with the investigation. I’m happy to share that information with you.” She looked up, and for the first time her eyes, red with tears, looked curious. “Very happy.”
“Thank you.”
With a small nod he indicated that he would keep his word. They sat in silence.
“What did you mean by insurance?” said Webster at last.
“I’m sorry?”
“You mentioned insurance earlier. That Dmitry had taken out insurance.”
“I did not know I said that.”
Webster decided not to push it. Instead he asked her whether she knew Richard Lock.
“Richard? Yes, of course. He sent me some flowers. Why?”
“He still works with Konstantin Malin. I worry that if Dmitry was in danger he may be too.” He had tried this line with Nina’s husband, and as he said it he felt a pang of conscience; back then he hadn’t wholly meant it.
“If he still works for Malin he will be fine.”
“What sort of a man is Lock?”
“A normal man. Dmitry liked him. Mr. Webster, I prefer not to . . .” The doorbell rang. Nina looked puzzled for a moment and then she seemed to gather herself, as if preparing for an encounter she didn’t relish. “Excuse me.”
Webster stood as she left the room to open the front door. He heard muffled, urgent exchanges in German, followed by a man’s footsteps, heavy and stark on the wood. The man kept talking in a high voice. Webster caught a few words: “. . . zuerst die Russen und jetzt die Engländer. Zumindest ist er nicht eingebrochen.” First the Russians, now the English. At least he didn’t break in. He was still standing when a short, florid man, with a twisted mustache and all but bald, stomped into the room muttering, “Wo ist er? Wo ist er?” Seeing Webster he stopped, fixed him with a stare and told him to leave. “Get out. Go on. Leave.”
Nina, right behind him, took his arm and tried to usher him back out of the room, saying something in German that Webster couldn’t make out. The man replied in firm, slightl
y patronizing tones—“Hat er Dich auch bedroht? Dann ist es nur eine Frage der Zeit”—and she let go of his arm. Has he threatened you as well? Then it’s only a matter of time.
“Do you know who I am?” he said to Webster.
“I think so, yes.” Webster had seen him with Gerstman on his first visit to Berlin. He was wearing a tweed suit. His accent was almost grotesquely rich.
“I am Heinrich Prock, Herr Webster. Partner of Herr Gerstman, who is now dead. Perhaps, Herr Webster, when I called you I did not make myself clear. Hm? We want this out of our lives. Out.” Prock was still emphatic, but in person there was something ineffectual about him, something ridiculous, like a well-groomed little dog with a substantial bark. It occurred to Webster that had he spoken to Prock in person that Sunday in the park he might not have taken him so seriously. “. . . forever.” He went on. “I do not know who you are working for, or what you want. I do not care. What I care about, Herr Webster, is that this woman is left alone. She has been bothered enough. But you come here, to the flat of a widow, not a week after her husband died, to search for answers of your own. You are no different from the others. Now I would like you to leave before I call the police. Go now, please.” He pointed to the door, an unnecessary gesture.
Nina turned to him and said something in a low voice. Prock responded in an urgent hiss. “Wann kamen die Anrufe? Vor zehn Tagen? Und dann taucht er auf? Woher weißt Du, dass er nicht für sie arbeitet?” When were the calls? Ten days ago? And then he shows up. How do you know he isn’t working for them?
Webster looked at Nina, who stood with her arms crossed beside Prock. She gave a regretful nod, which seemed to say that she would rather this had ended differently, but that he should go.
Walking past Prock he stopped in front of Nina and said, “Thank you. If I hear anything from Budapest I’ll let you know.” She nodded again and he left. As he walked away he could feel Prock’s indignation behind him bursting to be given vent.
AFTER BERLIN Webster spent a day in Paris with a hearty Onder, who had seen Lock and had plenty to report, and then flew back to London for a meeting with Tourna the next day, Friday. Despite himself he could feel the case beginning to pull at him again, teasing ideas out of him, leading him on from one place to the next. Firing his imagination. The good ones did this; they wouldn’t leave you alone. Nina knew something, he was sure of it—sure too that she would part with it if she thought it would truly hurt Malin. He wondered how much of him wanted to find justice for Nina, and how much of him simply had to know.
The Silent Oligarch: A Novel Page 16
