by Lee McGeorge
I’ve taken steps to make your life easier. We will never be able to meet again. All I want is that you find a way to live your life to the fullest.
Please destroy this letter. Do not keep it. It could harm you and the child. Destroy it now.
There was no name or signature. It didn’t need one.
Ildico tore the note in two, then again, automatically following the instructions. Burn it, she needed to burn it. She dropped the fragments into her purse.
Petran watched her. She wanted to look normal. Wanted to make it seem as though nothing was happening. “Is everything alright?” he asked.
When Ildico said, “Yes, it’s fine,” her voice cracked and made her out to be a bad liar.
“This is for you too,” the lawyer said holding out keys.
“What is this?” Ildico asked, her voice high through a tight throat.
“For your home in Centrul Nou.”
Ildico looked at the keys as though they were alien. “My home?”
“Yes… I’m guessing this is a surprise for you?”
Ildico could feel herself swaying. She wanted to ask if there had been a mistake but she knew there hadn’t been. The letter. It wasn’t a mistake. “Where is this home?” her voice cracked as she tried to get the words out.
“I’m going that way,” Petran said. “If you like, I can take you.”
Petran drove.
He asked questions about Alina.
Small talk.
Pleasantries.
They arrived outside a tall modern apartment building finished in brilliant white render. Ildico set up the pushchair and locked the baby in. She kept looking up at the building like a tourist on their first visit to New York, fascinated by the height of the real estate.
“You have my number,” Petran said leaning across the car seat to talk through the open door.
“Uh, huh.”
“Yours is apartment ninety one. There are some more documents laid out on the dining table for you. If you have any trouble with them, you can call me.”
Documents on the dining table… a dining table? Could this be real?
“Miss Popescu? Is it alright, is everything okay?”
She nodded shallowly. “Yes. I’ll call if I need help, thank you.”
“Good luck to you, Miss Popescu. La revedere.”
“La revedere,” Ildico replied. Goodbye.
“Ra, rava rava,” Alina said joining in.
The lawyer drove away.
The apartment block was in the most prime location of Brasov. The lobby had black polished floor tiles. There were two large plants beside the doors of the elevator… an elevator.
She fitted the key in the lock expecting it not to fit. It opened without effort.
“Oh, my God,” she said it with a hand covering her mouth.
The apartment was simple but large. The main room was open plan with a kitchen, dining area and a modern sofa arrangement. It was brand new. Everything was new. There was a modern kitchen that had never been used, a simple modern dining table with chairs of chromed steel and black leather. The sofas were cream and stylish, angled to where a television should go. The walls were white, the windows undraped and a smell of fresh paint hung in the air.
Ildico walked to the bedrooms. One room had a double bed and simple furniture, the other had a crib and a set of drawers. She looked into the bathroom, clean and white.
Back at the kitchen the first thing she noticed was a thermostat on the wall. This home had its own heating. Then she looked at the dining table and saw the documents. They were from a bank with account numbers and her details. Typed in English was a single sentence.
‘Take this to the bank with your I.D. to get your ATM card.’
She went back to her purse and found the torn up note fragments and reassembled the jigsaw. Three sentences kept repeating in her mind over and over again. She could even hear his voice as the words cycled.
I’ve taken steps to make your life easier.
We will never be able to meet again.
All I want is that you find a way to live your life to the fullest.
She looked at the note fragments for a long time, then lit the stove and set each fragment alight. She kept the final fragment in her hand, reading and rereading the final portion, doing her utmost to commit the phrase to memory. Eventually, when she was sure it was so ingrained within her mind it could never be forgotten, she touched the paper to the flame and dropped it in the sink.
She put the keys in her pocket and picked up the paperwork.
“Alina, come here… We’re going to the bank.”
----- X -----
Cornel stepped into the room first.
“This is typical of how the decor is finished, but we can have it made to suit,” the realtor said. Cornel nodded and began walking around the lounge, looking at the details. “Of course, it comes with gas central heating and constant hot water.”
He didn’t respond. He wasn’t in the market. He was pretending. “Are all of the apartments laid out the same?” he asked. “The apartments above and below, are they the same shape as this one?”
“Yes. Except those on the end of the corridor. They’re smaller, but have a private balcony. Would you like to look at one?”
“No.” Cornel said. “I want living space more than a balcony.”
It was unbelievable.
Fucking unbelievable.
A week ago he’d watched Ildico Popescu move into the apartment above this one. He ran his finger across the granite kitchen worktop. A brand new building? The most expensive new block in the city? “Do you handle all the sales?”
“Yes,” the woman said with a grin. “I’m the sole agent… The bathroom is over here.”
Cornel looked in nonchalantly. “And do you rent any of the apartments or are they all sold?”
“They’re sale only. Just to make clear, we have a clause that the apartments cannot be rented privately for the first five years.”
“So everybody who lives here right now is an owner?”
The woman nodded. “Yes.”
“You know, how I know about these apartments is a friend of mine just moved in, Ildico Popescu. She lives upstairs in number ninety one, but I’m sure she told me she was renting.”
“Ildico? No, she owns the apartment.”
“Oh…” Cornel tried not to show any emotion. “She owns it does she?”
“Are you related?” the woman asked. “To Ildico and Alina. Bless her, such an adorable baby.”
“No. Not at all, we have an acquaintance in common.”
He left Europe Apartments.
He stood across the street staring at the building. How the hell had an uneducated, unemployed single mother from Noua bought an apartment with the hottest address in town?
He went to the town hall, he asked for the land registry of the building, looking for ownership rights. It took two hours of bureaucracy and a fee of thirty five euros. The apartment was registered in her name. The purchase details showed the realtor in Brasov and... someone else… “And who are you?” Cornel whispered. The purchasing agent was listed as Burkhalter & Company, a law firm based in Zurich, Switzerland. “Explain yourself, Ildico. How do you buy an expensive home through a Swiss law firm?”
Cornel leaned against the wall holding the documents. What had she been doing behind his back? He’d watched her, he knew her, she was a simple girl incapable of buying a home like this. Swiss lawyers? Ildico Popescu having a Swiss lawyer? Impossible.
There was only one name he could think of to do this, but it couldn’t be. It was absurd.
Would he buy her a house? Could he?
McGovern had a thing for Popescu, more than a thing, he had an obsession with her. When his hideout was discovered in London they’d found her name all over his written notes. There was even circumstantial evidence he’d tattooed himself in her honour… but it couldn’t be him because he was hiding, he lived like a rat in London, squatting in a d
erelict house. Paul McGovern couldn’t do this… could he?
Worse.
Paul McGovern couldn’t be allowed to do this. Not to Ildico. She was supposed to suffer.
“But what if it is him?” Cornel whispered. “What if he bought this home for her?” He looked back at the paperwork knowing that in his hand, for the first time in years, he held a lead. It was tentative. There was every chance of it being wrong. There was every chance that Popescu had gained her new home by some other means… but he knew. Instinctively, he knew this was a break.
----- X -----
Grey clouds were gathered across the police station and light rainfall was punctuated by the rumbles of distant thunder. It was late in the day and darkness was falling. Cornel was hovering by the car park watching the two entrances to the station. The rain was light but persistent and it had pasted his hair to his head and soaked through the shoulders of his jacket.
Ion Lupescu emerged from the police station and crossed towards the parked cars. Cornel was quick, his feet splashing through puddles. “Ion… Ion, hold up, it’s me, Cornel.”
Lupescu at one time had been his boss. He was also the man most responsible for forcing him into early retirement. Lupescu mouthed something like, “Oh, Jesus,” and made a shake of his head. “Hi Cornel, how are you?”
Cornel held a hand out to shake. Lupescu took it with a grimace, making no disguise as to his wish to be anywhere else. Fuck him. This was too important. “I emailed you, Ion, twice. I didn’t get a response so I wanted to come and make sure you received what I had.” Cornel pulled a manila envelope from inside his coat. “I’ve been doing some work on…”
“Yes. I got your emails,” Lupescu interrupted.
“And…”
The deputy chief of police sighed. He looked to the sky and made a show of wiping rainwater from his brow and flicking it away. He smoothed his moustache between thumb and forefinger. He looked at his watch then pointed to a coffee shop on the edge of the car park. “I can give you five minutes.”
They went to the store.
“Let me show you what I have,” Cornel opened the envelope and pulled documents onto the table top. Bills of sale, transfers of money, rights of ownership, land registry. “Okay, this is a law firm in Zurich, it’s run by a guy called Johann Burkhalter who, on the surface, is an immigration lawyer. I think that’s a cover. What he really does is hide money for rich Russians. He’s a tax evasion specialist.”
“I’ll have a black coffee, put it in a paper cup please, to go.” Lupescu ordered his beverage, paying little attention to what Cornel was showing.
“So Burkhalter transferred funds out of Switzerland…”
“Cornel… Cornel! Stop… I know what you’re showing me. I’ve read your emails.”
“You didn’t respond.”
Lupescu sighed. “That’s right. I didn’t… I didn’t because you’re not a detective anymore. You’re a civilian and I can’t talk to you about an investigation.”
Cornel smiled, a mild taste of victory. “So you are investigating.”
Lupescu sighed again and shook his head. “Look, Cornel. Let me be as honest with you as I can be… This, this what you’ve turned up is interesting. More than that, it’s compelling. In fact, I think it’s worth pursuing. I think your hunch that Paul McGovern bought property here is strong and worth following.”
“Good,” Cornel said.
“In fact, what I will tell you, that I shouldn’t, is it has been followed up.”
“Even better,” Cornel replied.
“And it’s been dropped.”
The conversation went silent. The waitress placed Lupescu’s drink on the table top. “Black coffee,” she said, “to take away.”
“Multsumesk,” he replied. Thank you. The waitress moved away. Cornel wanted to say something, wanted to spit words but Lupescu had his hand in the air, palm forward, before any question came. “It’s Switzerland, Cornel. They have a banking system that works in the shadows, they have a legal profession locked behind force fields. They won’t issue warrants for information without clear evidence of a crime and if it was McGovern, even if it was him, the fact that he bought a house in Romania doesn’t constitute a crime in Switzerland. I’ve checked. I thought this was worth following up. I did. I read your email and had the same questions you did. But the attorney recommendation is we would spend years fighting for the information and probably wouldn’t get it. Whoever bought that home for Ildico Popescu did it in a way that is as hidden as can be.”
Lupescu stood up, he sipped his coffee.
“You can’t just let this go,” Cornel pleaded.
“No,” Lupescu interjected. “It’s you who can’t just let this go. It’s over Cornel. Paul McGovern has gone. Thankfully. We don’t want him back. Look at yourself. You’re chasing a ghost, obsessing over who bought which house. You’re not a detective anymore, remember that, You’re retired and the investigation is finished.”
“It’s not finished,” Cornel said.
“It’s finished for me,” Lupescu responded.
Cornel jumped from his chair and hissed, “Well it isn’t fucking finished for me. Look at my face. Look!” The moment he said it Lupescu looked away. His scars made him look like a picture of Frankenstein’s Monster drawn by a child. “You cannot let a serial killer roam free. He must be found.... I can’t let it go because he cut off my face and cost me my job.”
“No, you cost you your job… He’s gone and this meeting is over.” Lupescu grabbed his coffee and turned his back. “Good to see you, Cornel. Let’s do it again in ten years… And you can pay for my coffee.”
The fat man was through the door a moment later. Cornel didn’t follow. He stood watching Lupescu as he walked back to his car and threw his coffee into a rubbish bin.
“Fuck you,” Cornel whispered. “He needs to be found. If you won’t help, I’ll do it myself.”
----- X -----
SIX MONTHS LATER
Cornel touched his feet to a cold floor, sweeping them left and right to find the slippers beside his bed. He shuffled to the double framed windows and scraped at the fine layer of ice that had formed on the inside. The heating was off again and the condensation had frozen on the glass.
Three trucks emblazoned with the Coca Cola logo and decked out in Christmas lights stopped at the traffic lights nine floors below. He scraped away more of the frost to watch the garish, rolling advertisement. Music came from the trucks. ‘The holidays are coming, the holidays are coming.’
“What fucking holidays start this early?” he grumbled. “Jackass Coca Cola mother fuckers.”
He’d slept in sweatpants, T-shirt and thick socks and now out of bed he wrapped himself in a bathrobe and pulled on a woollen hat. He should have had gas central heating installed by now. He could afford it, he just couldn’t be bothered. He couldn’t be bothered with anything.
He made coffee. He added whisky, then ignored the coffee and guzzled the raw alcohol straight from the bottle.
“Fucking Coca Cola… Fucking Christmas!”
The clock said it was seven in the morning.
He sat alone in his kitchen under a single bare bulb. The plaster walls were last painted a decade ago, the light switch, fittings and furniture were all from communist times. There was no carpet. The sink was full with dirty crockery that had been there at least a year.
The coffee was getting cold. He finished what was left in the whisky bottle before starting on the wake-up juice.
Every day the same.
Not like Ildico Popescu in her fucking mansion. It was bought for her by Paul McGovern, he was sure of it, he just couldn’t prove it. In six months of investigation he’d gotten nowhere other than to learn that as well as her apartment, she also enjoyed a bottomless bank account. He watched her, he stalked her, he tallied her purchases and watched deliveries come to her home.
The song went through his head again, ‘The holidays are coming, the holidays are coming.’ Wi
th the tune Cornel felt something break. It was almost imperceptible, like a fine twig stepped on in a forest, but he felt a surge of emotions wash through him. ‘The holidays are coming, the holidays are coming.’
He stood and paced, somehow aware that he had to move from the kitchen, to move his body, to do something. He went to the bathroom to piss and caught sight of his reflection in the big mirror that ran along the wall of the bathtub. It was an odd, non-luxurious luxury that was in place since he’d moved in. The bathroom had a concrete floor and bare walls, but across the whole back wall above the bathtub was an enormous mirror. It showed his reflection as he pissed. Someone, at some time had thought it was a good idea.
“Look at you… Look at your fucking face!”
He stopped pissing. He wobbled from the pre-breakfast alcohol.
Ildico Popescu was a beautiful young girl with a beautiful home. Did she have a decorated tree? Did she have presents in shiny paper? Was it warm in her luxury apartment?
‘The holidays are coming, the holidays are coming.’
“I’ll give you a fucking holiday.”
He went to the bedroom and reached under his bed for a shoebox labelled as men’s brown shoes, size forty nine. He opened it to reveal his Carpati 7.65mm service pistol; the old issued handgun to the police. He loaded it, unsure why. Should he shoot himself? Suicide seemed kind of pointless There was no meaning to it, but it was better than just marking time until death. The only thing he knew was he had to keep moving. He had to move his body, get out of here, do something, do anything.
He took a fresh bottle of scotch and went to the car. “Let’s just... Fuck it all. Fuck this life.” He started the engine and spun the bottle cap until it fell off and got lost by his feet. He drank in big gulps. He pulled out of the courtyard and began his way towards Centrul Nou, chugging on the whisky as he went.
