Displaced

by Barbara Nadel

  A sound of laughter caught her attention and Sara watched as a group of black-clad young people ran past her and disappeared into a tangle of bushes. Probably, she thought, on their way to Spreepark, the old abandoned fairground on the banks of the River Spree. Once an East German pleasure park, it was now abandoned, providing entertainment only to young urban explorers.

  But then Sara didn’t miss it. Such places, which dealt in organised fun, had always struck her as sinister. Mainly because those who ran them were merely playing a part. Nothing in such places was real. If anything, Spreepark was a metaphor for the whole entity that had once been the DDR.

  ‘Do they ever sleep?’

  Amber’s father looked up from his paperwork and said, ‘Ask your grandfather. Far as I know, he’s the only one who actually talks to them.’

  Amber continued to look out of the caravan window at the ‘Siamese’ twins, Ping and Pong. They were standing quite still in front of her great-grandfather’s caravan.

  ‘Some people say they can speak English and others say they can’t,’ Amber said. ‘I was thinking the other day, I’ve never actually heard them say anything more than single words.’

  ‘I’m surprised,’ her father said.

  She frowned.

  David Sanders looked up from his figures again and said, ‘Because of all the time you spend with them. And yes, your mother’s told me.’

  Amber felt her face turn red.

  ‘It’s those two who rig up the dodgy flying equipment you try to use. Don’t deny it, Amber. Your mum told me all about it. I know you love your nagyapa, but he’s old, he lives in the past and he’s got no concept of health and safety. Ditto the Twins. Old Bela may well have been the best flier in the world back in the year dot …’

  ‘He was,’ Amber said. ‘He’s shown me photos. He performed all over Europe. He was presented to the King of Greece and Adolf Hitler.’

  ‘Adolf isn’t someone you boast about, Amber.’

  ‘I know, but—’

  ‘You’re a fairground kid,’ David said. ‘Like me and your mum. This isn’t a circus. If it had been you’d have trained for that, but it isn’t. Nagyapa was flying from the moment he was born back in Nowhere, Hungary. Now he’s as old as God, he’s reliving his past. Forget it and don’t hang about with the Twins. You know they cause trouble. Now let me get on with this paperwork, will you? Enough to drive me mad.’

  What he didn’t add was that they also always did whatever Bela Horvathy wanted and that was usually a bad thing. Old Bela, he thought now, probably liked being introduced to Adolf Hitler. He had been, David reckoned, a man after the old bastard’s own black heart. A lot of Hungarians had capitulated with the Nazis when they’d invaded the country in 1944 and, although Bela had always maintained he had been in the Resistance, David had always doubted that. The old man, in his experience, was sly. Dodgier even, he sometimes thought, than those vile Twins. God alone knew who and what they were.

  EIGHT

  Lee Arnold had expected sod all from Barking nick regarding a copper from Barking Creek – and he’d got it. But, nudged by Vi Collins, Tony Bracci had come up with enough to ask Lee to meet him at what had once been Barking Creek’s pub, the Crooked Billet.

  Needing to get to Forest Gate nick for nine, Tony had asked Lee to meet him at seven, which meant that the PI was even more red-eyed than usual. This wasn’t helped by the early morning mist that, so locals had it, tended in reality to hang over the Creek for most of the time. As he watched Bracci walk towards him, Lee sucked hard on the fag he hoped would keep the mist at bay.

  ‘Morning, mate.’

  Tony Bracci, blonde of hair and fair of skin, was the most unlikely Italian Lee had ever met. And yet the family were well-known, both as ice merchants years back and as staunch members of the local Catholic community. Lee remembered Tony’s dad, Carlo, well. Unlike his son, he’d had black hair and skin the colour of tanned hide.

  ‘Tone.’

  Lee held his hand out, which Tony shook.

  ‘Old Billet looks a bit sad these days, don’t it?’

  Both men looked up at a nondescript building covered in ‘Keep Out’ signs and partially hidden by chain-link fencing. It seemed to bear no relation to the tatty 1930s boozer they’d both once known. A truck carrying concrete blocks, bounced along the pot-holed surface of River Road in the direction of the massive Barking Creek Barrier and then turned off into a yard full of shipping containers. The area still retained its old connections to the river and seafaring even though it was difficult these days to catch sight of either the Creek or the Thames.

  ‘So …’ Tony rubbed his hands together. ‘I was born on Thames View, as you know. But the grandparents and me dad, until he was twenty-five, lived here. Back in those days it was called Creekmouth Village, but it was completely destroyed in the flood of 1953. The whole lot of us were moved to the Thames View Estate. But, according to my Aunt Cissy, we all kept in touch. Very tight-knit it was here and, although most of the old inhabitants of the village worked at the Lawes Chemical Factory back in the old days, some of them, like my family, did other things. Sadly for some of the more lively oiks, one family was all coppers.’

  ‘Did you know them?’ Lee asked.

  ‘No. But Auntie Cissy – she weren’t Italian, but married me Uncle Mario – she did. Name of Askew.’

  Lee said, ‘She still alive, your aunt?’

  ‘No,’ Tony said, ‘but me cousin, Chiara, her daughter is like the historian of the family, goes on websites what tell you who your great-uncle twice removed was. So when the guv told me what you was up to last night, I give Chiara a bell. She told me the Askews still live on Thames View on Stanley Avenue, across the road from me Uncle Mario. He’s got dementia now, poor sod, so he don’t know what time of day it is. But Chiara and her brother used to play with the Askew kids from time to time and she still knows a woman called Brenda who’s got an old uncle who may be who you’re looking for.’

  ‘Great. So why …’

  ‘Did I want you to meet me here?’ He smiled. ‘Because Chiara is going to meet us here. Should be along to open up the caff across the road any minute.’

  That was the first time that Lee had realised there was anything as civilised as a caff in the area. Although what Tony was looking at looked like nothing more than a garden shed.

  He’d got up at the crack of dawn to telephone the doctor’s surgery, but even so he hadn’t been able to get an appointment that morning. So many booked online now, it just wasn’t right. But the receptionist with the posh voice had given him a really early slot the next day and so Irving knew he should be grateful. Advance appointments very rarely happened these days.

  The park was already open and so, although it was in the opposite direction to Barking Tube Station, he went in. All the usual early morning crew were in evidence: dog walkers, joggers, alcoholics, kids smoking with their mates in the bushes before school. Digging was impossible this time of day and besides he had no energy. Also, although he couldn’t stop himself doing it sometimes, he knew really that even if Miriam had been buried in the park, her body was going to be deeper down than he could manage. Maybe he’d come back after work?

  In two weeks’ time the fair would come. He’d been several times over the years, but it still frightened him. Those Siamese twins were long gone, or at least he’d never seen them since that terrible day when Miriam had been taken. Freak shows like that were a thing of the past. But the fair still made his blood run cold. Such shifting bands of people always had to be suspect. He could still remember his father talking about ‘Gypsies and vagabonds’ whenever the fair arrived. Understandable in light of what had happened to Miriam, even though his father never spoke her name. Also, Irving had the feeling his father had taken a dim view of travelling folk a long time before his daughter went missing. Strange in one whose race was considered a ‘wandering’ nation. Maybe it was because the Levys had been in England for many generations?

  Irvin
g decided to walk once around the lake and then head for the station. A woman was being dragged along by a Rottweiler whilst trying to talk to a man with a pug. It was impossible. People were ridiculous. The things they did very often didn’t make any sense. His father had hated the fair and yet he’d let his wife and children go to mix with the ‘Gypsies and vagabonds’ without a murmur. Or had he? Maybe Rachel had taken them in spite of him. He was, after all, mostly at work in those days. Irving couldn’t remember. But what he did know was that it was only after Miriam’s disappearance that his parents’ rows began. Had they been caused, at least in part, by the fact that his mother had taken the children to the fair without her husband’s consent? In those days, particularly amongst religious Jews, women did very little without telling their husbands. But then, of course, his mother hadn’t been Jewish, had she? And so maybe her visit to the fair had been by way of a statement about who she really was?

  Irving hoped that he found at least some trace of her if or when he went to Berlin with Lee Arnold. Whoever she had been.

  ‘He’s not gone in the head like Dad. He just can’t get about because of his hips.’

  Tony Bracci’s cousin, Chiara, was a plump woman in her mid sixties. She had short, fat legs, a bosom the size of a bookshelf and masses of dyed red hair, which sprouted from her head in every possible direction. She also made a brilliant fry-up for which she’d take no payment from either her cousin or Lee Arnold.

  Once she’d fed all her regulars – blokes working on local building sites, truckers, a cab driver who may or may not have been her boyfriend – she joined Tony and Lee at their table outside the caff and lit a cigarette. She’d begun talking about a bloke called Tommy Askew, her friend Brenda’s uncle, immediately. Apparently he was the youngest of three brothers who’d all been in the Job. The other two were long dead.

  ‘I’m sure he’d be happy to talk to you about the old days, love,’ Chiara told Lee.

  ‘I’d be grateful if he could,’ Lee said.

  ‘He has a carer go in twice a day now, but only to do jobs for him. Me and Brenda take him a dinner a couple of times a week. He likes a plate of pasta. Still got all his marbles.’

  ‘Do you know if he was ever called to the fair at Barking Park?’

  Chiara shrugged. ‘I dunno, love. Possibly. I know his brother Ray done the carnival a couple of times. In fact, I think he married a carnival princess, although you’d never have known it to look at her.’

  Tony smiled.

  ‘You can laugh all you like, Tone,’ she said. ‘But you must remember old Rita Askew, face like a smacked arse.’

  Lee used to be taken to Barking Carnival by his mum when he was a kid. He remembered it as a fun evening out where he and his brother, Roy, were allowed to stay up late and look at lots of pretty girls dressed like bridesmaids. But it had nothing to do with the fair.

  ‘Can you ask Tommy if he’ll see me?’ Lee said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  He picked up his phone. ‘If I text you my mobile number, can you let me know?’

  ‘You can give me your number any time, love,’ Chiara said and then told him her number.

  Once he’d sent her the text, Lee said, ‘I don’t want to put pressure on the old bloke, but if he can see me soon …’

  ‘He ain’t going nowhere,’ Chiara said.

  They all knew that wasn’t necessarily the case, but no one said anything.

  When they finally left the caff, Lee said to Tony, ‘Nice breakfast. I’ll probably come back.’

  Tony smiled. ‘Just be careful of Chiara,’ he said. ‘She’s been single for years. Them extra-thick rashers of bacon may come at a price.’

  In common with most of the Arnold Agency’s ‘casual’ operatives, Jasvinder Patel and Mike Craig were both ex-coppers. And while Mike had only done ten years in the job, Jas had worked fifteen years, three of those in CID. It was therefore to Jas that Mumtaz gave the more complicated case. It involved discreet surveillance of a woman suspected by her husband of having an affair. It needed to be handled carefully as the suspected ‘other man’ had strong links with organised crime. Mike, on the other hand, had a full day’s worth of process serving from Dagenham to Shepherd’s Bush.

  Once she’d allocated jobs, Mumtaz sat down at her desk to look at her e-mails. But then her phone rang.

  ‘Arnold Agency. How can I help you?’

  ‘Oh.’ It was a woman’s voice. ‘Oh, is Lee in?’

  ‘No, not yet,’ Mumtaz said. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I’ve tried his mobile, but all I get is voicemail,’ the woman said.

  ‘He’s with a client, I understand.’

  Mumtaz didn’t know that. All Lee had told her was that he was going to be late.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Is there anything I can help you with?’ Mumtaz asked.

  There was a pause.

  ‘I am his business partner.’

  ‘Mrs Hakim?’

  ‘That’s it,’ Mumtaz said.

  The woman sounded pleasant enough. Probably middle-aged, slight estuary accent …

  ‘My name’s Amanda Patterson,’ the woman said. ‘I work for the Ilford Recorder.’

  Mumtaz knew the name. Mandy was Lee’s AA sponsor. He’d also contacted her about Barking Park Fair.

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘My late dad was, like me, a reporter on the Recorder and Lee asked me to look something up for him in my old man’s archive.’

  ‘About Barking Fair, yes, I remember him saying.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got something,’ Mandy said. ‘But I’m not sure whether it’s what he wanted. I can’t find anything about the little girl who went missing in the early sixties, but Dad did cover a story about an accident at the fair in sixty-eight.’

  ‘I see.’

  Probably irrelevant by the sound of it and so Mumtaz said, ‘Shall I ask him to give you a call when he gets in?’

  ‘Probably best,’ Mandy said. ‘He’s got my number.’

  And then she hung up.

  Mumtaz turned to her computer and opened her e-mail. It was heaving with messages, most of which were spam and other rubbish. She decided to make herself a cup of tea. The call she’d had from Wahid Sheikh last night had left her unable to sleep properly and so she was tired. But then what had she expected? Denying that family anything wasn’t something one just ‘got away’ with. When she’d told the old man he wasn’t marrying her daughter, had she really expected him to just go away? Time had passed and so maybe she had.

  But that had been a mistake. Now back in the real world again, she’d have to find some more money from somewhere.

  ‘Can I help you with anything?’

  Ever since she had retired from her job as a cleaner, Sara Metzler had filled her life with reading, walking and volunteering as an archivist at the synagogue. She had never dwelt on the fact that back in the old days of the DDR she’d been a respected translator of, very carefully vetted, English textbooks. She had deliberately filled her life. However, maybe, in the case of this Austerlitz business, she was filling it a little too much.

  ‘Ah …’

  The man who stood in front of her was tall, dark and didn’t look happy. But then why would he be when she, a stranger, had been staring at his house for fifteen minutes?

  What she said was lame.

  ‘You have a beautiful house …’

  ‘Yes, it is, but …’

  He was actually quite good-looking. But then, contrary to popular belief, a lot of them had been. Honeytraps could not be set using any old rubbish.

  Suddenly, he smiled. ‘I apologise for my tone, Frau,’ he said. ‘But I’m not accustomed to having people stare at my house. Do you, possibly, have a connection to it?’

  One always had to be careful what one said to the Stasi and, so Sara had been reading, that applied particularly in the case of what had then been young, eager operatives like Gunther Beltz. The photograph she’d googled of him didn’t do him justice. Like the h
ouse at number 67 Grabbeallee, Herr Beltz was much larger and more attractive than his picture.

  Sara said, ‘No. I am simply just a person who appreciates architecture.’

  She wasn’t lying. She did. And the four-storey house was impressive. Though constructed of grey stone, which gave it a rather dour appearance, it had a charm that Sara associated with venerable houses from the nineteenth century. Such places exhibited attention to detail in their finely proportioned windows, mature gardens and ornate entrances. Many buildings like this had been destroyed in World War II – too many.

  ‘I like it,’ the man said. But he didn’t elaborate upon the subject or give his name. But then he wouldn’t.

  ‘Do you know—’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything about it,’ he interrupted. ‘And even if I could, I have to work.’

  ‘Oh …’

  ‘I am a writer,’ he said. ‘I saw you from the window of my office. And now I must go.’

  He turned on his heel and walked away in a very stiff, what some might interpret as a Prussian manner.

  He didn’t and hadn’t told Sara to go, but she knew that was what he wanted.

  And once she had gone, Gunther Beltz switched his camera back on and looked at the photograph he’d taken of the woman through his French windows.

  Lee waited for Mumtaz to go on her lunch break before he phoned Mandy back. He knew that was petty and stupid – he did need to share information about the Levy case with her. But this morning she had been even more monosyllabic than usual and it had pissed him off. How long was this guilt she carried about their one night of passion going to continue? And when was he going to be able to stop obsessing about it?