by Nick Louth
‘So do I. But I’m not.’ He paused. ‘Erica. I think you should be prepared for something.’
‘I think I know what you’re going to say.’
‘Right. That mattress is not free, he’ll want something for it. I just hope it is something that won’t hurt you to give him.’
(Erica’s Diary 1992)
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Max awoke to the squeal of brakes as the train shuddered to a halt in Antwerp, Johnny Gee’s home town. Where better to find Lisbeth than here, and especially today. Through the grimy window he saw his first rooftop glimpse of urban Belgium, a monochrome jumble of old buildings, stained by smoke and greasy rain.
It was just after 9 a.m. when Max got off on the long platform, the tannoy echoing in his ears, his worldly possessions in his hand. The holdall had been packed in two minutes yesterday evening when he sneaked back to the darkened apartment. A few clothes, a sleeping bag, every cold cream and moisturiser he could ransack from Henk’s luxurious bathroom, and two hundred euros from the kitchen drawer. In exchange Max had left an IOU and an apology for all the troubles and danger he had brought down on Henk’s hitherto genteel life.
Max reckoned his own life expectancy would be in direct proportion to how long he could keep Anvil convinced he died in the fire at Der Ridder. Disappearing from Henk’s apartment would assist that, but cut the last umbilical to any kind of normality in his life. There was a more worrying implication. Dead men don’t report daily to the police station, even if bail conditions demand it. Henk’s bond would be forfeit the moment the cops realised Max was still alive. Another friend lost.
All Max had left was a faint trail to follow. From dead Johnny Gee to scarred Lisbeth, from Lisbeth to a laptop computer, from the laptop to Erica. What he would find when he got to the end he dare not contemplate.
A trip to tourist information led to a long bus ride, south through Ghent into Ypres. The cemetery he wanted was ten kilometres out of town, south towards the French border: two infrequent buses or a long walk. A low grey drizzle began soon after he set off on foot, and he was soaked by the time he saw the long rows of poplars which marked the cemetery boundary. It took ten minutes more before he reached the gates, which opened into a courtyard and car park with rows of mature dark cypresses behind.
Max asked an old groundsman with a wheelbarrow where Johnny Gee’s grave was. The old man clearly didn’t speak a word of English, but the name brought a knowing smile to his lips, which lifted his cheroot like a salute. He signalled a route beyond and clapped Max on the shoulder, perhaps assuming he was a down at heel relative of the great boxer.
A wide drive led out of the courtyard, lined by more cypresses. Max could now see what a vast place this was. Identical simple white crosses stood in their tens of thousands, lined up like soldiers on parade, an army of First World War ghosts reaching out to the horizon. Max shuddered as he walked among them. He followed a long white gravel path which eventually passed through a gated wall into a different cemetery. Here the headstones varied, though most were simple engraved slabs. Some graves dated from the Second World War, others were more recent. In places rainswept flowers sagged in mildewed jars, and wreaths of soggy paper poppies leaned on the stones.
Max had expected to wait for Lisbeth, but she was already there. He recognised her only when she discarded her colourful umbrella. She was a hundred yards away, crouching with her back to him and her face towards a large grey headstone. He hung back and watched as she replaced the rotted stalks of old flowers with fresh peonies, lilies and chrysanthemums and wiped down the polished granite with a cloth from her patent leather bag. There was a tiny plot of earth around the grave, and she knelt to weed it with a trowel, oblivious to the dark vee of damp spreading down her raincoat, her moisture spangled hair. Finally, she leaned forward, hung her arms around the shoulders of the stone and pressed her forehead against it.
When Max saw her shoulders shaking, he turned away in his own pain. How hard death presses the flower of love between its heavy pages. Keeps it bright, unchanging, allowing neither decay nor regrowth. Would this be him in thirteen years? Kneeling at Erica’s grave, craving the touch of the dead.
Only when Lisbeth stood, and picked up her umbrella did Max approach. They were only ten yards from each other when she turned and looked at him in astonishment.
‘Max! What are you doing here?’
‘I had to see you.’ He glimpsed the tramline of maroon scabs running diagonally on the left side of her face, the faint yellow of fading bruises. Then she swept her hair across to hide it.
‘Lisbeth, I want to say sorry.’
‘How did you find me?’ She folded her arms. She didn’t look in the mood for apologies.
‘I looked up Johnny Gee in a library, came to his home town. Asked at tourist information. It isn’t difficult to find out where a famous boxer is buried. I figured you would come here at some time on the anniversary of his death.’
‘My God. That was too simple. Anyone could have found me.’
‘Like Anvil,’ Max said. ‘I owe you big time for taking the risk to let me know the name.’
‘I think I had to do it. But now I’m worried. Let’s get out of here.’ She made room for Max under the umbrella and they started walking towards the entrance.
‘God, Lisbeth, I’ve been feeling so bad. And when I saw your guitar and clothes at the apartment in Bijlmermeer…’
‘I thought I was safer there with Karen than at home. Now my best friend is dead, because of me.’
‘No, she’s dead because of Anvil, not you.’
‘Don’t believe it. I’m jinxed. I bring bad luck to everyone I meet.’
‘Not to me. I have my own share.’
‘Perhaps.’ Lisbeth took in his bandaged hand, his lobster-tinted neck and ears. She gave him a lopsided smile, stretching the silvery red skin around the stitches. ‘You look in as big a mess as me. What happened?’
‘Nothing, really. Don’t worry, I was born to be ugly, but you…it kills me to see what I did.’
‘Shush. I stepped in the way, it was stupid. My own fault. I don’t blame you. It was all a stupid accident. The police want me to give evidence against you. I refused.’
‘You did?’
‘Of course. But everywhere now is fear. Even Janus has shut up his shop, and does not return my phone calls. Now you see why I didn’t want you to stir things up?’
‘Yes. And for all this effort and pain and waste, I’m at a dead end. I still haven’t got any idea where or why Anvil is holding Erica, or even if she’s still alive.’
‘What about the cops?’
‘Useless. They just don’t want to know. It feels to me like Anvil’s got some high-up protection or something.’ They had now arrived at a bus stop outside the cemetery.
‘That might be true. I know a cop called Dirk Stokenbrand...’
‘Jesus, that shifty little weasel.’
‘Yes, he’s not very nice is he? I once gave him some information about a vice ring and he was happy until I told him Anvil set it up. Then he said he couldn’t touch it. He wouldn’t say why.’
‘Lisbeth, are you a regular snitch?’
‘A what?’
‘An informer, for Stokenbrand.’
She paused. ‘I was, for a long time. But not any more. He came to me in hospital that night, after Purple Haze, and I wouldn’t see him. I was already running a risk, giving you Anvil’s phone number. I thought Anvil could use Stokenbrand to find me, so I had to disappear. I should have made a better job of it.’
‘It all makes sense now,’ Max said. ‘Stokenbrand gave me a real hard time after Purple Haze, like it was something personal. I thought maybe you and he had a thing going…’
‘Max! Ugh! He’s disgusting.’
‘So he’s just sore at losing his snitch, well, well.’
A bus pulled up and they got on.
‘I’ve been staying in a different city for a few days, but tonight I’m taking
the train back to Amsterdam,’ Lisbeth said. ‘Are you coming?’
‘Sure. I don’t have much money, though. I lost my wallet in a fire, and what little cash I have is borrowed.’
‘It’s my treat, and I always travel first class. Tonight we’ll eat on the train, drink some wine too. Then later on even more fun. I’m going to take a big risk and show you where Anvil lives.’
‘Aha!’
Professor Jürgen Friederikson held up a pair of tweezers to the light and squinted at the insect he held suspended by one leg. ‘It’s another one.’
Professor van Diemen walked around the big table, where a dozen students were picking through the contents of the vacuum cleaner bag, until he was close enough to see it. ‘What is it?’
‘Another Anopheles tigris. Named after the stripes, see here.’
Van Diemen lifted his glasses to look more closely. ‘So no tropical mosquitoes so far?’
‘No, just six of these. This is native north European, found anywhere from Madrid to Warsaw. It lives in trees, as often in cities as outside them, and it bites only people.’
‘The challenges of parasitology don’t leave me much chance to refresh my memory on the vectors, but I don’t recall that tigris has a history of being malarial,’ Van Diemen said.
‘It isn’t a particularly common mosquito, so I don’t think the research has been done. Although…’ Friederikson picked up a clipboard and looked through some notes. ‘Yes. We seem to have trapped many, many more in the insecticide nets than we would have expected. More than three times the number. I had assumed that they responded well to the hot summer. I might be wrong. I think it is time to concentrate our studies on just this species.’
Back at the lab Van Diemen watched as Friederikson and his students separated out the tigris mosquitoes from the others that had been posted in from the net traps. There were three hundred and nineteen tigris, twelve percent of the total. Carefully, they dissected them, removing head and thorax for grinding. They set up twenty assay plates, one for each net trap location, and one just for the mosquitoes recovered from the vacuum bag. Then they added the monoclonal antibody.
Students crowded around, watching and waiting for the telltale yellow mark, the signal that the mosquitoes were carrying Plasmodium five.
‘My God.’ Friederikson’s eyes were fixed on just one plate. ‘Every damn one of them, look.’ All six pits containing remains of mosquitoes from the aircraft had turned yellow. On the other plates roughly one in twenty had turned yellow. ‘This is our culprit.’
Van Diemen’s brow was furrowed. ‘But if the mosquitoes on the plane weren’t foreign, then Plasmodium five doesn’t come from abroad at all.’
‘Possibly. But I tell you what is really worrying me.’ Friederikson’s eyes were glittering. ‘The mosquitoes from the nets were naturally infected, presumably by biting passengers from the aircraft. The five percent infectivity rate corresponds to that you might find in a malarial African village. But the mosquitoes from the aircraft were all infected. Every single one was carrying the disease. That never, ever happens in nature. The only way is if someone did it deliberately.’
Brigadier Crocodile has been conducting a charm offensive towards me for several days. The food has improved all round. I have been sent books, writing paper, and insect repellent. Where I can, I have shared with the others. Yesterday’s gift was a whole roll of cheap white toilet paper, delivered to me by Gaptooth. As soon as he departed I pulled off a twenty-foot rope and rolled it up in my sheet. Then I took the remainder of the roll, put my arm up through the grid and keeping a tight grip on the end, rolled it along the length of the grilles.
‘Surprise!’ I shouted, and listened to the murmurs of appreciation as Jarman, Amy and Sister Margaret pulled down streamers of the paper into their own cells. I knew they were worried for me too. Worries that intensified day by day. They were waiting for the time when Crocodile summoned me. Waiting for payback.
Tonight was the night. It had been dark two hours when the outside door was opened and Gaptooth came in quietly. ‘Crocodile want see you.’
All I could think was how much I wanted Tomas to be here, to look after me and hold my hand through whatever ordeal was to come.
The door was opened and I was taken outside. I had been so long in the cell I could barely walk. Pins and needles surged through my lower legs and I stumbled. Gaptooth pulled me through the long grass to the other hut. Only when I stood on the whitewashed verandah and saw the carpet and hurricane lamps through the window did it sink in how filthy I was and how much I must stink. My last wash of any kind was in the river when we played soccer, days ago.
Brigadier Crocodile opened the door. He was dressed in a well-pressed uniform, with a blue beret and half moon spectacles. His pudgy face was wide with pleasure around the stub of a cigar.
‘Miss Erica, I am so pleased you could join me. Do come in.’
The room was a study-cum-bedroom and surprisingly modest. There was a leopard skin stretched out on the wall, and a couple of pieces of battered but apparently antique European furniture. One wall was hung with framed black and white photographs, some faded and curled to sepia, and others almost opaque with condensation. They seemed a mix of formal military and tribal portraits.
As I turned, Crocodile held out his arms and offered me a dress, an appalling shade of puce, printed with garish orange flowers.
‘I think this will suit you,’ he said. ‘For after your shower.’
‘Shower?’ My eyes widened.
‘Yes. You would like to wash, perhaps?’
‘Of course. I am so filthy…’
He led me into a clean, white tiled room with a western-style toilet, soap and a fresh towel. He explained that a chain dangling from the ceiling controlled a valve from the rain water tank in the roof. I mumbled my thanks, gratitude tempered only by the fact the door had no lock.
I closed the door and stood in my filthy clothes, thinking. There were several clear facts. One, he had absolute power and would do to me what he wanted regardless of my actions. Two, I was more likely to be accorded human respect when washed and dressed in clean clothes. Three, his behaviour so far seems designed to make me respect him. I must make it absolutely but subtly clear that he will lose my respect if he tries anything with me. Finally, if the worst happens, I will only acquiesce in exchange for the release or best possible conditions for my fellow prisoners. That last thought sent a shudder through me, but I removed my clothes and pulled the shower handle.
The water was warm and wonderful, and I never wanted it to stop. I trampled my filthy clothes underfoot, removing as much of the filth as possible and using up almost all of the Brigadier’s soap. It was an hour later when I emerged, with the towel round my head and the revolting puce dress on. It was quite short on my legs, but at least it was decently high-necked. My wet clothes and the towel I left in the shower.
He was sitting with a bottle of beer to his lips, scrutinising me.
‘Did you enjoy the shower?’
‘Yes. Thank you. My friends would very much appreciate it too. Is it possible?’
‘No. I can’t turn my own private quarters over to everyone. Please, sit down.’ He indicated a low settee to his left. I chose instead a dining chair and pulled it up to the table.
‘I can tell you don’t like the dress.’ He sounded sullen.
‘Anything so clean seems beautiful. I am afraid I don’t have the complexion for such a powerful colour.’
‘No. On the contrary,’ he wagged heavily-ringed fingers. ‘It complements your beauty very well. Your skin is so wonderfully pale, and…’
‘Do you have a brush I could use?’ I asked hurriedly.
‘No. I am very sorry. I would like to offer you a dryer, but we have yet no electricity.’ He stood up and swigged his beer. ‘But electricity is coming, soon. What I would like is to build a beauty salon, like they have in Paris and New York. With those huge dryers like beehives.’ He described them with
his hands, his brown eyes widening.
‘That sounds great. It might take a while though.’
He turned to the window. ‘All worthwhile developments take time. Poverty of ambition is the heaviest chain on man’s soul. With electricity, here, we could have a cinema, we could have television and video. We could have a casino, with machines. The bandits, what do you call them?’
‘One armed bandits?’
‘Yes. I am leading through my dreams. If I was born in Brussels or America I would be called a romantic. There, in the corrupt city of despots, they laugh at me.’ He pointed, as if Kinshasa was just a few yards out into the night.
There was a knock on the door, and a young soldier brought in a tray with two steaming plates on it. He set the food on the table, with polished cutlery and two glasses. The glasses had Mickey Mouse and Pluto stencils on them.
The brigadier went to a cabinet and produced a bottle. ‘Vodka. You must drink with me.’
‘No thanks.’
He ignored me and filled a glass, pushing it across the table to me. ‘One day I will have a refrigerator. Then we can have cold drinks with pieces of ice in them.’
We began to eat. The food was delicious, goat and vegetables in a spicy sauce on a bed of rice. The knife and fork looked absurdly small in the Brigadier’s meaty hands, but he used them daintily and chewed slowly with his mouth closed. My mother would have been impressed.
‘I learned my table manners in Britain,’ he said suddenly, pointing his fork at me for emphasis. ‘I did a six-week training course at your Sandhurst College. No officer’s mess at this table!’
‘Are you a real Brigadier?’
‘Of course,’ he said smiling. ‘I command one thousand men, that is about one brigade in the British Army. In Africa, perhaps it is too easy to promote oneself. If I was to make myself field marshal that would be foolish vanity, and do not have large enough forces.’
He smiled again as he ate. ‘But you must not call me Brigadier. You must call me Sonny.’
‘Is that your real name?’
‘Yes. Sonny-Sonny Loebe. It is a European version of my tribal name.’
