“Mrs Barrington? Name's Dexter, Jeremy Dexter. Friend of Luke's. From Rome.”
She nodded, a sign of vague recollection. “Yes, he spoke of you.” She stepped aside. “Please. Come in.”
“Thanks.”
The house was dark, shut up, as if the owners were away. She led him through to the drawing room. There were dirty dishes on the kitchen table, the house smelled musty, there were cups and glasses strewn around the coffee table.
Mercedes slumped into a winged back chairs.
“Please, sit down.”
He perched on the edge of the chintz sofa. There was a blanket and a pillow at one end. Someone had been sleeping there. He wished he had not come, but he had convinced himself that there were certain things Luke's parents should know. He hoped this wasn’t a mistake.
“It was good of you to come,” Mercedes said.
“Needed to talk to you. Your husband not here, Mrs Barrington?”
“He's at work. In Oxford.”
“Ah. Tried ringing. Phone was off the hook.”
“Yes. Afraid it is.”
“When will he be back?”
“Not until late. After seven.”
“I see.” God she looked awful. Like an old lady in that shawl. His eye strayed to the mantelpiece, Luke arm in arm with his parents, at a beach somewhere.
Jeremy didn't know where to start, just knew he had to get this done and finished with. “It's about Luke. Should have spoken to you at the funeral. Didn't seem like the right time.”
“You were at the funeral, Jeremy?”
He nodded.
“I'm sorry. I don't remember. I hope I wasn't rude.”
“No. Of course not. Not at all. Sad time ...” He trailed off.
A long silence. He listened to the clock ticking on the mantel.
“Knew what he was doing in Rome, did you?”
“He was writing an article, he said. On the Pope.”
“There was some other business. Did he tell you about it?”
She shook her head.
“He was investigating a man called César”Rivera.”
“Yes?”
“He told you?”
An almost imperceptible shake of the head.
“You see. Thing is. I wonder if you've considered. This accident, I mean.”
“Are you saying that it wasn't an accident?”
He nodded.
Another long silence. Finally: “There is nothing you or I could do about that, is there?”
“Well, suppose not.”
“If you think this, why are you telling me? Why don’t you go to the police?”
“Well. Not really anything they could do, I suppose. Even if they believed me.”
“You see?”
Well, this was disturbing. He thought she would be shocked, angry. This surreal calm was unsettling. “My fault, really. Encouraged him. Told him things it was better he didn't know.”
“You're not to blame,” she said softly.
Mercedes got slowly from her chair and went to the mantel. She picked up a framed photograph and brought it over. She switched on the lamp on the corner table and handed it to him. Jeremy stared at a portraiture of the Barringtons; Stephen, Mercedes, Luke ... and Simone Rivera.
“This is your daughter, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Does she look familiar?”
“Actually, yes. She does.”
“Did he tell you?”
“Mentioned it.”
“I see.” She took back the photograph and sat down again, cradling it to her chest like an infant. “If you loved Luke, and if you have any concern for the feelings of myself and my husband, then you will not tell a soul about this. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I understand,” he said. “Absolutely.” But he did not understand. He did not understand at all.
PART FOUR
EUROPE AND SOUTH AMERICA
Winter 1995
Chapter 74
Mexico City
REUBEN SAT ON a tubular chrome chair, listlessly turning the pages of a magazine,. He changed seats, looked at his watch, picked up another magazine. Newsweek carried a report from Rome on the crisis inside the Vatican. The Catholic faith, it was reported, was facing mass defections in Latin America because of its habit of supporting repressive regimes. Now Seventh Day Adventist and other Protestant churches were gaining ground there. The Catholic Church might lose as many as eighty million adherents to Protestant congregations in Latin America.
There were concerns about the health of the Pope. The Vatican was trying to dispel rumours about Parkinson's disease or even bowel cancer. A spokesman had denied there was pressure on the Pontiff to step aside.
Death is never far away, Reuben thought grimly, not even for the Vicar of Christ. And on Judgement Day, God will not want to know about all the ground you kissed and all the cheering crowds; he will ask you instead why you never thought it holy or just to stand by the tortured in Latin America and in Argentine, why you never spoke out for your murdered priests and nuns as you did in Poland.
He tossed the magazine aside.
It was the end of the rainy season. The sky was the colour of lead and a late afternoon downpour had leeched the smog from the air and the jutting concrete nightmare of Mexico City was bathed in an eerie greenish light.
The receptionist called his name. “Doctor Calderon will see you now.”
***
Last night he dreamed he was back in Argentine. It was late at night and the cobbled streets were empty. A green Ford Falcon, its lights off, drove towards him. He started to run, but his legs would not respond. They dragged him into the car.
He had woken in a lather of sweat.
Calderon wore an expensive grey double breasted suit, complemented with a powder blue shirt and navy tie. His hair and fingernails were immaculately groomed. Reuben guessed his age at around fifty five.
Older than I am, though he has much longer to live.
He produced X-rays from a large grey envelope and hung them on an opaque backlit screen. Like a teacher explaining a complex mathematical problem he pointed out to him the shadow on his liver. He heard the word 'tumour.”
“How much time do I have?” Reuben asked him.
Calderon seemed bewildered by the interruption. “One cannot be sure in such cases.”
“Just tell me how long.”
He took his time with his verdict. It was difficult to say. They could try chemo- and radiotherapy. He would do his best to make him comfortable.
“How much time?” he repeated.
Pressed, he gave his verdict. Six months. Reuben might be able to function normally using self-administered analgesia at the beginning. After that he might require hospitalisation. Reuben was not without means. He could be assured of the very best medical care.
Gabriella, will you be waiting for me? I need you to be there on the other side for me, so that I can ask your forgiveness.
He realised Calderon had spoken to him. “I beg your pardon?”
“I asked if there is any family.”
Reuben shook his head. “No. No family.”
Calderon seemed anxious. Perhaps he was thinking about his next patient. “What will you do, Señor Altman?”
“Did you hear about the patient who went to his doctor, and the doctor says: “I have some good news and some bad news.” And the patient says: ““Let me have the bad news.” And the doctor says: “I am afraid you only have a week to live.” And the patient stares at him and shouts: “Oh my God, what's the good news?” The doctor says: “Well, did you see that beautiful new receptionist I've hired, the young girl with the absolutely fantastic breasts? I fucked her last night.” '
The doctor blinked, shocked by this insult to his reputation, and then recovered. He closed Reuben's file. “If there's anything I can do.”
Reuben shook his head. “I shall be going overseas for a while. I will need a good supply of pain killers. I must know how I can obtain more while
I am away. Can you help me with that?”
Chapter 75
A SMALL BOY WAS playing the accordion in the street, a green plastic bowl on the pavement between his legs. Reuben opened his wallet and dropped a wad of notes into the bowl. The boy snatched them up and hid them in his pocket before some other, older urchin saw what had happened and tried to steal them. He shouted benedictions at Reuben's retreating back.
What curious liberty death bestows, Reuben thought. It is life, or the preservation of it, that keeps us chained. Once that’s gone, a man could really enjoy his life.
If only he had gone home that night instead of running to the Mexican embassy.
***
He stood in the living room of his apartment, gazing around helplessly, as if searching for something he had lost. Finally he took a bottle of Bushmills out of the cabinet and fetched a crystal tumbler from the kitchen. He slumped on the sofa, turned on the television. He turned down the volume and surfed through the channels; an Italian football match, a gringo soap opera, a music channel, Luis Miguel.
Shadows crept towards him from the window, the skyline etched in violet. He could hear police sirens in the distance.
He wondered who else would be waiting on the other side for him. Julio perhaps.
He tried not to think about Julio.
It was the way he had lived for nearly twenty years, trying not to think, not to reflect. He worked fourteen, sixteen hours a day, sometimes even on weekends, drowning himself in the chronic act of forgetting.
He stared at the telephone. One phrase echoed over and over in his mind as it had done for the last thirteen years: You think if one of your daughters was alive, she will want to see you. After you ran out on her and her mother?
Why did Domingo say that? One of your daughters. Not either of your daughters. One of them. As if he knew that one of them had survived. Was it possible? There was still a way to find out. There were some things he could face in death that he could never face in life.
He picked up the phone.
Money would not be a problem. The job at the bank had paid well and he had never spent extravagantly, had not even taken holidays. And he knew how to invest, it was one lesson his father had taught him well.
He used his credit card to book an air ticket. One way, business class, to Buenos Aires.
Chapter 76
Buenos Aires
HE EXPECTED TO BE arrested at the airport, just as he had the last time he had landed at Ezeiza. This time, though, I have a real crime on my head. But the official behind the desk stamped his passport and waved him through with no more than a cursory glance.
In the taxi he glanced out of the window and tried to pinpoint the spot where he had left Julio's body. He wondered how long it had them to find him.
Or perhaps he's still there.
He wondered about that. For months afterwards he had lived in dread, expecting the police to appear at his apartment or at the bank with an extradition warrant. When they did not come it occurred to him that Carmen had, for her own reasons, kept silent about Reuben's presence in Buenos Aires, and in their home. She was the only one who could link him directly to Julio's disappearance.
Why had she told him about the rape, that night in the car?
It was warm for the time of the year. The weather in Argentine had been slowly changing ever since 1980, something to do with the destruction of the Amazon rain forests they said. The political climate had changed, too. The Peronists had won power again in 1987, under Carlos Menem. Two years later, with inflation spiralling towards five thousand per cent a year, the economic minister, Domingo Cavallo, passed a 'convertibility' law pegging the peso the the US dollar. Now inflation was down to 4%.
Menem had further reduced budget deficits by selling off state run dinosaurs like Aerolineas, and ENTel, the telephone company. The parks were green and trim again, having been taken over by La Naçion and Banco de Galicia. There were new hotels and shopping malls. The smell of money had returned to the Microcentro.
But on other fronts the news was not as good.
Menem had handed pardons to Videla and Massera for their part in the Dirty War. They had served just four years of their life sentences, mostly under house arrest in their palatial homes in Buenos Aires. Alfonsín's administration had passed a 'law of due obedience' allowing lower ranking officers to escape trial, as well as establishing, in 1986, the “Punto Final' beyond which no more prosecutions could take place.
The Madres de la Plaza still marched every Thursday afternoon around the obelisk in front of the Casa Rosada, carrying the grainy photographs of their disappeared. Menem continued to ignore them.
Reuben stared at the graffiti on the walls. “IMF OUT OF ARGENTINE'. Well, that was something. In 1975 you could be shot for painting slogans on a wall. People were at last free to write on the walls again, but they had still judiciously decided to blame the country’s problems on someone else.
***
This time he stayed in the Claridge in Tucumàn. He went straight up to his room on the fourth floor, looked out of the window at his view of Buenos Aires and reviewed his plans, such as they were. He had thought about contacting Carmen. But he decided there were some questions better left unanswered.
Besides, she might have remarried by now. Let her have her life back. She had had enough Reuben Altmans for one lifetime. and, there had certainly been enough Carmens for him
He winced. The pain was sudden and unexpected. He sank to his knees and groaned clutching the edge of the writing desk. The spasm only lasted moments but when it eased he was soaked in a cold, rank sweat. He lay down on the bed.
He reached out a hand, found the comforting bottle of morphine tablets on the bedside table. In a way he should be thankful for the pain. It reminded him that time was short and he had to hurry and get on with what he had to do.
***
And so: back to the docks.
He had climbed this same stairwell twelve years before, he remembered these same dank smells. He stopped in front of Domingo's apartment, stared at the cracked paint on the door.
What if he had moved on? How would he ever find him again? It could take months, months he did not have.
He took a deep breath and knocked. He waited, heard footsteps inside. A tall young man in a white t-shirt and jeans opened the door. There was stubble on his chin. He looked like he’d been in a bar fight.
“Does Domingo Goncalvez live here?”
The young man looked him up and down; the Italian leather shoes, the Swiss wristwatch. “Who are you?”
He guessed that this brute - my nephew, he reminded himself - was probably the child he saw peering from behind his mother's skirts the last time he came.
“My name is Reuben Altman. Your father will remember me.”
The door closed in his face. He waited.
Suddenly Domingo stood there, legs akimbo, hands clenched into fists at his side. It smelled like he’d been drinking. His face was deeply lined now, like every one of his fifty years had been carved into a skin with chisel. He wore a white vest, and a pair of baggy black trousers. He had also lost a lot of his hair.
“Por Dios! So, is it you again?”
“Hello, Domingo.”
“You look sick.”
“I am sick.”
“Good. I hope you die. What do you want?”
“I have to talk to you.”
“We’ve nothing to talk about. Fuck off or I’ll have my boys throw you down the stairs.”
The door slammed in his face, as it had done thirteen years before. All that was missing this time was the spit.
Chapter 77
REUBEN HIRED A Fiat from a Hertz agency and drove to Avellanada very early the next morning. He parked opposite the apartment block and waited. Just after seven o'clock Domingo came out of the building and jumped on one of the gaudy colectivos that plied the city. He followed the rattling Mercedes bus to the Avellanada bridge, saw him get off and walk up the concrete sta
irwell to an iron and cement footbridge. Reuben followed, at a distance. Domingo crossed the dockfront on the Boca side and walked into a tyre fitter’s not a hundred yards from the Avenida Almirante Brown.
***
Reuben came back later that afternoon, and positioned himself on the bridge, where he had a clear view of the workshop. Just on dusk a man in blue vest and overalls came out of the workshop and closed and padlocked the wooden doors. Reuben guessed that Domingo would not go straight home. He was right. He and his boss went to a bar on the next corner.
Reuben followed, slipped into a doorway on the opposite side of the street.
The shadows lengthened, yellow light spilled into the darkened street. The rough laughter of men's voices inside the bar grew louder. He smelled the asado, and his stomach growled; saw the flicker of the television screen, heard the men in the bar cheering and shouting. Boca Juniors were playing San Lorenzo. Reuben took out his morphine, tipped a pill into his hand. He washed it down with brandy from his hip flask.
At last, Domingo came out and staggered back towards the bridge. Reuben fell into step behind him.
It was dark on the river now. The bridge shook as a heavy truck rumbled past, a few yards above their heads. The river tank of sewage and diesel.
Domingo climbed the stairs up to the bridge. They were halfway across when Domingo finally sensed there was someone behind him, and turned around. He was bleary with drink and slow to react. Reuben walked up quickly, grabbed his arm and pushed him against the metal guard rail. He pressed the knife against Domingo's kidneys through his threadbare brown workman's jacket.
Domingo gasped in surprise. But they were right under a streetlight and after a few moments he was able to focus and he recognised Reuben. His face relaxed into a grin.
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