by Peter Temple
‘Well, I don’t want to stand up for Adolf ’s taste in architecture but if you have to have water towers, it’s not too bad.’
‘Water tower? I thought it was a planetarium.’
‘Now it is. It think it was built as a water tower. We could have coffee, something.’
He needed a drink, he hadn’t had anything to drink all day, nothing at lunch time, he usually drank beer from the machine in the basement.
‘Yes, good. Do you know where?’
‘I think so. It’s been thirty years, almost that.’
They set off again, crossed the road. She took big strides, he’d always had to shorten his stride with women, the women he remembered walking with. That was not many. He remembered one. He remembered walking in Maine with Helen Duval, she complained constantly about being bitten by midges, then she tripped over a root and claimed to have sprained her ankle. They were within sight of the cabin he’d hired. That was as far as they ventured.
‘You’re a medical doctor,’ he said. ‘As well.’
‘In theory,’ she said. ‘In practice, I can’t even diagnose myself. I get flu and I think I’m dying. You came to the park when you were young?’
‘I was brought to see the birds. They used to have wonderful exotic birds and all kinds of fowls, these huge fluffy things, golden pheasants, I remember. May still be here somewhere. Do you enjoy what you do?’
She had taken off her glasses. He hadn’t noticed her do that.
‘I suppose so.’ She looked at him, looked away. ‘Yes. Well, I do what I do and I don’t give much thought to whether I enjoy it. It’s not that…it’s not a question that arises. It’s my work.’
She was not used to being asked questions. She asked the questions. They walked in silence for a time, gravel hissing underfoot, the wind tugging at them, lifting their hair. Then they saw a sign and went down a path and found the cafe. There were more people in it than in the park, people rewarding themselves for taking exercise.
‘Hot chocolate with rum,’ said Anselm. ‘That’s what we should have.’
‘Right.’
‘The woman who brought me here always had one. She used to give me a teaspoonful. That’s where it all began. My decline.’
A waitress in black with a white apron came and he ordered two, stopped himself ordering a drink as well, asking her whether she wanted a drink.
‘What brought you to hostages?’ said Anselm.
He wasn’t looking at her, he was looking at the people. He had been doing that since they entered, doing an inventory of the people in the big room. Then he realised she would notice that and he looked at her. She’s pretending she hasn’t noticed, he thought, she’s wary. She thinks I’m capable of repeating last time’s performance.
I am.
‘Well, most of the post-trauma research in this area has been on large groups,’ said Alex. ‘I’m interested in the dynamics of survival in small groups.’
‘What about personality and life history?’
She smiled. ‘You didn’t take well to that. May I say that?’
Anselm nodded. ‘Certainly. To my shame. Did it come under the heading of an extreme reaction?’
‘Mild, I’d class it as mild.’
‘On the extreme scale.’
Alex laughed. Some of the wariness was leaving her, he felt that.
The drinks arrived. She sipped.
‘Wonderful. I haven’t had one of these in years. Not since Vienna.’
‘Does research like this have a use?’ said Anselm.
‘That’s a journalist’s question,’ she said. ‘Academics hate questions like that. It might have a use one day. Everything has a use one day, doesn’t it?’
‘That’s not a very academic answer,’ said Anselm. ‘I thought the idea was to present your research as vital to the survival of the universe?’
She held up her hands, the long fingers, no rings. ‘I know, I should say that. Vital to the survival of my career would be more like it. Let’s say my project is part of the giant mosaic of research, we can’t quite see the pattern in it yet. But…’ ‘You’re not very German,’ he said. ‘You don’t take yourself seriously enough.’
‘If I’m not very German it’s because I’m Austrian-Italian. A quarter Italian. My mother is half Italian. Her family is Italian-Jewish. Jewish-Italian. Atheists until they think they’re dying. How do you describe yourself?’
‘Once I thought I was American. American-German. But I don’t know now. My mother was American but her father was British.’
There was silence. She looked away.
‘Not being sure about what you are, that wouldn’t be a trauma symptom, would it?’
Alex looked at him impassively, she had a judge’s face, and then she smiled. ‘Everything’s a symptom of something,’ she said.
She finished her drink, a pale collar of froth left around the glass. Anselm drained his.
‘I could drink many of these,’ she said. ‘But I have to see a doctoral student, a frighteningly earnest young man. How did you travel here?’
He told her he was parked off Ohlsdorferstrasse.
‘I’m near there. We can walk together.’
He paid and they walked back, light failing fast, shadow pools around the trees, streams of shadow under the hedges, the planetarium brooding, like a monument to something. He sometimes thought that everything old in Germany was a monument. The past had suckers, it attached itself to everything. There was no need to visit the sites or the denkmaler. Places spoke, whispered, smoked of what had been. The old railway lines held in their steel the weight of death trains, the city streets knew black boots, the songs, the slogans, the jeering and the tears. And lost hamlets and dripping cowpatted country lanes held voices, not always the voices of murderers and haters but of simple men and boys dead for the Fuhrer in frozen landscapes far away, the tanks bogged in mud set like concrete, the soldiers’ last thin intakes of air not reaching their lungs, going back into the huge grey world, then the rattle and then nothing. Just snow and ice and useless metal and human innards cooling, cooling, freezing. And over it all the sky of lead.
‘It’s a little menacing,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
They talked, it was easier now, leaves playing about their feet, they talked about the city, the traffic, the weather, the coming of winter, of Winterangst, of the need for sunlight, for Vitamin D, about where she lived. She lived in Eppendorf. She volunteered that she had been married. Her ex-husband was in America.
At their parting, she ran a hand over her hair and he thought he heard the sound it made.
‘So,’ she said. ‘Will you talk to me?’
He put his hands in his pockets. He was reluctant to part from her. ‘If you think it’ll help you get better. Come to terms with your life.’
She bit her bottom lip, looked down, smiling, shook her head.
‘It might,’ she said. ‘There is the possibility also that it could save the universe.’
‘Just added value, a bonus.’
Anselm drove back to Schone Aussicht, met Baader on the stairs.
‘I saw you smile,’ said Baader, pointing at the lobby below. ‘Down there. At the door. Feeling okay?’
‘Facial tic,’ said Anselm. ‘That’s what you saw.’
27
…LONDON…
‘Hear me?’ the voice asked.
Niemand opened his eyes, raised his head, didn’t know where he was.
He was still on the motorcycle, leaning against the rider, who was talking to him, head turned, mouth close, inside the helmet.
He looked around. Rubbish bins, cardboard boxes, walls close.
‘Yes,’ said Niemand. ‘I hear.’
He straightened up, lost his balance and fell sideways and backwards off the motorcycle. It didn’t hurt when he hit the ground, it was like being very drunk, nothing hurt.
Where was the bag?
‘The bag?’ said Niemand.
The yellow he
lmet was standing over him, holding the bag. ‘Got it. You need a doctor, I’m ringing for an ambulance, okay?’
‘No,’ said Niemand. He was trying to concentrate, it was difficult, he didn’t want to go to a hospital, they would find him there, they had no trouble finding him anywhere.
‘No, hold on,’ he said. ‘Just a sec…’ He put his hand into his jacket and found the harness, found the nylon wallet in his armpit. There was a card in it with numbers, five numbers, Tandy’s number was there, Tandy was a pethidine addict but he was a good doctor, for a mercenary he was a good doctor, he knew a gunshot wound when he saw one.
He wasn’t going to be able to unzip the wallet, find the card, his fingers were too fat, he’d developed fat fingers, no feeling in them.
‘Listen,’ he said to the yellow helmet. ‘Inquiries. Ring and ask for a Doctor Colin David Tandy, T-A-N-D-Y, Colin, that’s the one. Tandy. Tell him Con from Chevron Two…needs a favour.’
‘Tandy? Chevron Two?’
‘Colin Tandy. Tell him Con from Chevron Two. A favour. I’ve got a phone here in my pocket, you can…’ ‘Just lie there,’ said the helmet. ‘I’ll ring from inside. I live here.’
‘Listen,’ Niemand said. ‘Tell him…tell him Con says blood’s a…a bit short. Might need some blood.’
‘Jesus,’ said the helmet. ‘Don’t die.’
He lay there. It wasn’t uncomfortable. A bit cold, but not uncomfortable. He knew what uncomfortable felt like. This was easy. His neck was cold and his hands and feet but it wasn’t bad. He thought about getting up. The car was in the parking garage, wasting money. Money. Shit, the bag? Where’s the bag?
He felt for it, both hands, both sides, but his fingers were too fat and his arms were fat too, heavy, fat arms and fat fingers, it was very difficult to… When he woke, he was on a bed and someone was standing over him, doing something to his arm, two people there, he wanted to speak but his lips felt numb.
‘…fucking lucky prick…’ said a voice, he knew the voice. Tandy. Tandy had taken shrapnel out of him.
He woke again and he was alone, on a bed, naked, tape on his chest. He raised his head, and he could see a railing, like a railing on a ship. He was on some kind of platform, it wasn’t daytime, there was light coming from below, white light, artificial light. Banging, he heard bangs, not loud, chopping?
The bag, where was the bag? But he was too tired to keep his head up and he went back to sleep.
The third time he woke, he was clearer in the mind. He was on a big bed, a sheet over his legs, a black sheet. The bed was on a platform, a platform at one end of a huge room. He could see the tops of windows to his right, five windows, he counted them. Steel-framed windows. Big.
‘Awake?’
He looked left and saw half of a woman, cropped white hair, spiky, a black T-shirt. More of her came into view, she came up the stairs, she was all in black.
‘The guy on the bike,’ said Niemand. His mouth was dry. The words sounded funny, not like his voice. ‘What happened to him?’
‘I’m the guy on the bike,’ she said. ‘I have to give you an injection.
Your friend left it. You have really useful friends.’
‘Are you Greek?’ She looked Greek, she looked like one of his cousins.
‘Greek? No, Welsh. I’m Welsh.’
Niemand knew a Welshman, David Jago. He was dead.
‘Thanks very much,’ he said. ‘Picking me up, everything. Tandy. I’m feeling a bit strange.’ He was feeling sleepy again.
‘He told me to say the bullet seems to have chipped your collarbone and gone out your back. You’ve missed paraplegia by a centimetre. He’s says he’s given you a battlefield clean-up, he takes no responsibility, don’t mention his name to anyone and don’t call him again. Ever.’
She came closer. ‘I’ve got to inject you,’ she said.
Niemand focused on her. Welsh. She had a Greek look. The mouth. The nose.
‘What’s the chance of a fuck?’ he said. ‘In case I’m dying.’
She shook her head and smiled. It was a Greek smile. ‘Jesus, men,’ she said. She held up the syringe. ‘Listen, I’m the one with the prick. Do you need to pee?’
28
…HAMBURG…
Voices in the background, scuffling noises, other sounds. Tilders was watching a display on the small silver titanium-shelled machine.
‘Alsterarkaden,’ he said. ‘Having coffee. The first bit’s just small talk, ordering.’
Anselm was looking at the photographs of Serrano and a dark-haired man. They were sitting at a table in one of the colonnade’s arches on the bank of the Binnenalster. In one picture, the man had a hand raised.
‘What’s his name?’
‘Registered in the name Spence,’ said Tilders.
‘Looks like joints missing on his right hand,’ said Anselm, showing the picture.
Tilders nodded. He was moving the tape back and forth.
Serrano’s voice, speaking English:.. anxious, you can imagine.
Spence: It’s very unfortunate.
Serrano: You would be able to get some help locally.
Spence: Things aren’t what they used to be, you understand.
Serrano: Surely you’ve still got… Spence: We don’t enjoy the same relationship, there’s a lot of animosity.
Serrano: So?
Spence: The other party may have to be told.
Serrano: You understand, it was a long time ago, we feel exposed, we’re just the sub-contractors.
Spence: You were his agents, not so?
Serrano: Agents? Absolutely not. Just in-betweens, you should know that.
Spence: I only know what filters down. I’m a bottom-feeder.
Serrano: His agents never. A dangerous man. Unstable.
Spence: You’re worried?
Serrano: You’re not? You should be worried. The Belgian’s one of yours.
Spence: I don’t know about that. I don’t work in the worry department.That’s a separate department. So I don’t have that burden.
Serrano: This isn’t helping, I hoped… Spence: You lost him. If you’d come to us this needn’t have happened.
Serrano: Well, it’s happened, there’s no point… Spence: His assets, you know about them.
Serrano: We gave some financial advice but beyond… Spence: Beyond bullshit, that’s where we should be going. I’ll say one word.Falcontor. Don’t say anything. It’s better we clean this up without the principal party being involved. They make more mess than they take away.
Serrano: So?
Spence: The person can be found. Marginalised. But we need all the financial details. The Belgian’s too. We would want control of everything now.
Serrano: I’m sorry, you don’t know who you’re dealing with. We don’t disclose things like that.
Spence: You came to us. I’m saying it’s the only way to guarantee your safety.
Serrano: Well, perhaps we’ll let this take its course, see what happens. See whose safety we’re talking about.
Spence: That’s an option for you. A very dangerous option, but, you want to be brave boys… Serrano: A threat? Are you… Spence: Don’t worry about money, worry about life. Know that saying? We need to know your position quickly.
Tilders pressed a button, opened his hands. ‘That’s it. Spence goes, doesn’t wait for the coffee.’
‘The service is bad everywhere,’ said Anselm.
‘Same place in two days.’
‘Kael’s all paranoia,’ said Anselm, ‘but Serrano doesn’t seem to give a shit.’
Tilders nodded, flicked back a piece of pale hair that fell down his forehead, separated into clean strands. ‘It appears like that.’
Anselm took the photograph of the man with the missing finger joints down the corridor, knocked. Baader swivelled from his monitor.
Anselm held out the photograph. ‘Calls himself Spence.’
Baader glanced. ‘Jesus, now you’re playing with the katsas?’
&nb
sp; ‘Katsas?’
‘His name’s Avi Richler. He’s a Mossad case officer.’
‘Thank you.’
Anselm went back to his office. Tilders put another tape in the machine, watched the digital display, pressed a button.
Serrano: Richler wants the details. He knows about Falcontor. Bruynzeel too Kael: The cunts, the fucking cunts.
Serrano: I said that to him. He says it’s about our personal safety.
Kael: They must have holes in their fucking heads if…Jesus.
Serrano: Well, who brought in the Jews? This boat is making me sick.
Kael: Don’t be such a child. What could be in the papers?
Serrano: Lourens said to me at the Baur au Lac in ’92 when we were meeting the fucking Croatians, he was snorting coke, he said people who betrayed him would have a bomb go off in their faces. He was paranoid you understand… Kael: In the papers? What?
Serrano: I don’t know. I told Shawn to take anything he could find. There could be instructions. Notes maybe, things he wrote down. There’s nothing on paper from us. Not directly.
Kael: What do you mean not directly?
Serrano: Well, obviously he would have had proof of some deposits I made.
Kael: Your name would be on them?
Serrano: Are you mad? The names of the accounts the deposits came from.
Kael: How secure is that?
Serrano: As it can be.
Kael: And this film?
Serrano: I told you. He said he’d found a film, someone came to him with a film, it was dynamite. He said, tell them it’s Eleven Seventy, they’ll fucking understand. That was when he wanted us to go to the Americans to solve his problem.
Kael: Eleven seventy? And you didn’t ask what it meant?
Serrano: He was shouting at me, you couldn’t ask him anything. And he was on a mobile, it kept dropping out. I couldn’t catch half of what he said.
Kael: You set this up, you’re the fucking expert who’s left us turning in the wind, you should fucking know better than… Serrano: Christ, Werner, he was your pigeon. You brought him to me. You’re the one who said the Sud-Afs were like cows waiting to be milked, stupid cows, you’re… Kael: You should shut up, you’re just a… Serrano: Calm down.
