In the Evil Day (36 page)

Under the ashen, dying sky, the lake was still, pewter, mist on the far shore. A lone swan came into view, imperious in its bearing.

The words came to Anselm from his father and he said, ‘And always I think of my friend who/amid the apparition of bombs/saw on the lyric lake/the single perfect swan.’

Fat Otto looked at him. ‘What?’

‘Edwin Rolfe. A poem.’

Fat Otto looked away, looked at his watch.

‘He almost missed this appointment,’ he said.

‘Who?’

‘Serrano. There was trouble about the hotel safe.’

Anselm’s mind had turned to Alex, the Italianate face, the full lower lip she sometimes bit when she was listening.

‘What kind of trouble?’

‘Something about the keys.’

‘What’s that got to do with Serrano?’

Fat Otto’s mobile rang. He listened.

‘
Ja
.
Ja, alles okay.

’ ‘Serrano’s getting on,’ he said.

‘What have the keys got to do with Serrano?’

‘His briefcase was in the safe. He couldn’t get it while they were arguing about the keys.’

‘Briefcase? The same one?’

‘No, he has another.’ Otto looked at his watch again. ‘Paul has to get close with this new gadget.’

Anselm’s mind had returned to Alex but something passed over his skin like a touch, like walking into a cobweb, cold.

Serrano’s briefcase in the safe. Trouble over the safe keys.

Bruynzeel dead.

There was something wrong here.

‘Ring Tilders,’ he said. ‘Tell him not to get on.’

Fat Otto opened his mouth.

‘Do it,’ said Anselm. ‘Now.’

Fat Otto closed his mouth, tapped a number into his mobile.

Anselm watched Otto’s face. Otto’s eyes flashed at him, away.

Anselm’s mouth was dry. Something very wrong.

‘It’s off,’ said Otto. ‘He’s switched it off. Interference, he’s scared of that.’

Anselm closed his eyes. He felt sweat on his forehead, his skin was prickling, the car felt intolerably hot.

‘Was ist los?’

Otto was looking at him. Anselm shook his head. ‘
Eine Vorahnung.
Nur einen Augenblick lang.

’ Otto shrugged. ‘I get them too,’ he said. ‘Before plane trips, I always get them.’ He turned his attention to the black box.

They sat and listened to crackling, to static. Anselm was rubbing his fingers, the premonition wouldn’t go away, he felt panic coming.

Sit up straight. Put your hands in your lap, palms up, open. Breathe deeply, breathe regularly.

‘From hearing-aid technology,’ said Fat Otto. ‘And the tuner you wear in your ear, like a hearing aid but tiny, invisible. Cordless. The mikes are in spectacles. Three mikes. You tune until you drop out everything you don’t want. To six or seven metres, phenomenal, the clarity. I heard this couple in Spitalerstrasse talking dirty, whispers, whispering dirty, she said to him…’ ‘This isn’t phenomenal clarity,’ said Anselm.

‘We had no time to test transmitting.’

They sat for a long time listening to crackling and hissing, Fat Otto fiddled, Anselm tried to still his mind, slow the turning of the planet.

Serrano’s briefcase in the safe. The keys to the safe. An argument about the keys to the safe.

Bruynzeel dead. Lourens dead. Falcontor. Credit Raceberg.

‘The transmitter,’ said Fat Otto. ‘Still, we’ll have it. Probably.’

The ferry came into view, sliding on glass, windows aglow, in the last moments of the day.

Anselm felt the panic recede. The beating in his chest was less insistent, his pulse rate was falling. He opened his mouth and his jaw muscles made a noise, relief from the clenching.

Kael’s dark-blue Mercedes was in the same spot fifty metres from the landing, the driver leaning against it, looking at a hand, his nails, bored.

Calm. Anselm felt it come, his mouth was moist again, the salivary glands working.

All that troubled the lake was the ferry’s wake, the chevron, corrugations expanding, dissipating.

The lyric lake.

Only the swan missing, alone and perfect. The swan had come along too early.

They would have to go somewhere to listen to Tilders’ tape, ensure that there was something to listen to, that this hadn’t been a complete fuck-up. Or they could listen in the car. This would have to be a separate bill, a private bill, this was not O’Malley work, O’Malley had his freezable assets, he had what he wanted. Not a bill, no, ask Tilders to name an amount for this evening’s work, pay him in cash. Tilders would be impassive. But there would be something in his eyes.

In the distance, another Mercedes, black, parked illegally, there was no parking there. A wife, a driver, picking up the weary financial analyst, not parking, just waiting.

The day was dwindling, the far shore dark now.

Fat Otto switched off the noise, the crackling, the sibilance.

‘We have to work on this,’ he said.

Anselm ran hands up and down his cheeks, heard the sawing of the beard. He would ask Fat Otto for a lift to Alex’s.

When they had heard the tape.

He thought about unbuttoning the shirt. She always wore shirts. Kissing the lower lip that she bit. Biting it for her.

He felt in his groin the possibility of an erection, perhaps more than a possibility. He moved his thighs apart, made room for possibility. The ferry was about to dock, a handful of people waiting.

‘An experiment,’ said Fat Otto. ‘Better next time.’

‘Yes,’ said Anselm.

Movement inside the ferry. Passengers getting up.

There was a sound, not loud.

The ferry lit up inside.

Light red as blood, dark streaks in it.

A hole appeared in the ferry roof, a huge scarlet spear through the roof.

The ferry lifted, not high, came down, settled on the water, listed, burning inside.

‘
Um Gottes Willen
,’ said Otto. ‘
Um Gottes Willen
.’

Anselm was out of the car and running for the landing when he looked for the black Mercedes.

It was gone.

66
…HAMBURG…

IT BEGAN to rain as Anselm neared home, cold sleet-like rain, but it didn’t bother him. He had sent Tilders to his death. There would never be any escape from that fact.

On a whim. Not on business. Not on behalf of a client. On a personal whim.

For that, Tilders was dead.

The house seemed colder than usual, the rooms darker. He rang Alex.

‘I was wondering about you,’ she said.

‘I won’t be coming,’ he said. ‘Someone’s been killed. A friend.’

A silence.

‘I’m sorry. That’s terrible. Of course, you must…Whatever you have to do.’

‘Nothing. There’s nothing to do.’

‘Where are you?’

‘At home.’

‘Well. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

‘Yes, I’ll call you. I’m sorry.’

‘No, please, don’t be. These things, you need time.’

Anselm sat on the edge of the desk, looking at the carpet. He felt all his aches, no alcohol in the system to dull them.

A whim. Was it a whim?

No.

‘You aren’t a journalist anymore, John,’ O’Malley had said. ‘That part of your life is over.’

It wasn’t over. It had started again with the decision to put Tilders on the ferry. Sad-eyed Tilders, wry and icy-calm doer of the impossible, benchmark for reliability. It couldn’t stop because he had been blown to pieces. The opposite. It had to go on because he was dead.

Dead. How many people in this unfathomable business were dead. Now Tilders by chance, Serrano and Kael murdered, Bruynzeel, probably murdered. Lourens, probably. Shawn.

And, long ago, Kaskis and Diab.

He thought about the Wishart woman. She connected Kaskis and Diab to the film shown to her by Mackie, who was Niemand, and that brought in Serrano and Kael and Shawn and Bruynzeel and Richler and Trilling, whoever he was.

Anselm went to the cold kitchen and poured half a glass of whisky, took the bottle back to the study, sat in the ancestral chair behind the desk. He found the number and dialled.

It rang and rang and cut out.

The other number, he dialled that, it was a mobile number.

It rang and rang.

She answered.

‘John Anselm.’

‘Hold on, I’m in the car, have to pull over, I don’t have a hands-free.’

He waited.

‘Hi, hello,’ she said. ‘Sorry, the traffic’s terrible.’

He wasn’t sure how to put it, then he said it. ‘Mackie is a man called Constantine Niemand. He’s a South African mercenary. The film comes from South Africa. He came upon it by chance, I think.’

A sound, a sigh, perhaps a passing vehicle, too close.

‘Do you know what it’s about?’ Her tone was tentative, talking to a cat so as not to scare it away.

He didn’t know what to say.

‘No,’ he said, ‘but I think knowing about it is very dangerous.’

She said, ‘Yes. I know that. They tried to kill him again. Last night.’

‘Your paper knows what you’re doing?’

‘No. They don’t. It’s…well, it’s complicated.’

‘I’ll call you if anything else comes up.’

‘Please. I’m feeling desperate.’

He put the phone down. It rang.

‘Anselm.’

‘I’m outside your house. Yes or no?’

‘Yes.’

He waited for a while, drank some whisky, and then he went to the front door and opened it. Alex was there, hands in the pockets of a trenchcoat, face impassive, beautiful, rain on her hair.

‘I want you to fuck me,’ she said.

‘I ordered a pizza.’

‘We’re out of pizza.’

‘Well, this is most unsatisfactory.’

‘We’ll see about that.’

She came inside, closed the door, came up to him, close, he could smell her perfume. He put his hands on her waist and drew her to him.

They kissed, softly. Then harder and she pressed against him. He could feel her ribs under his hands. He slid his hands to her buttocks.

‘Do you have a bed?’ she said, not her usual voice, throatier.

‘We never sleep.’

‘I wasn’t thinking about sleeping.’

She put a hand on him but it was already happening.

‘I think you’re recovering,’ she said.

‘Only clinical trials can confirm that.’ His breath was short.

‘I’m a doctor.’ She unzipped him, put her hand in.

He was unbuttoning her red shirt. ‘A red bra,’ he said. ‘That’s provocative.’

‘White didn’t work last night.’ She squeezed him. ‘This is promising.’

‘Upstairs,’ said Anselm. ‘Quickly, I don’t know how long it will last.’

He was awake, lying on his back, still in the afterglow, and he caught the phone on the first ring.

‘Haven’t woken you?’ Inskip.

‘What?’

Anselm could make out Alex’s pale shoulders, the curve of the shoulder blades.

‘I heard about Tilders. I’m really sorry.’

‘Yes. Well.’

‘This probably isn’t of interest but that removed file, do you know…’ ‘Yes.’ He was talking about Diab’s file.

‘There was a number with the entry, a code. I didn’t think anything at the time, but it nagged. I went back and fiddled, just curious, you understand, pure spirit of inquiry, and…’ ‘What?’

‘It was one of a group of files removed at the same time, a bulk buy. All gone for good. Same remover.’

Alex turned onto her back and he could see her left breast lolling, flat on the breastbone, the nipple prominent. She moved her head, disturbed, as if worried by a fly.

He said softly, ‘How many?’

‘Eight.’

He felt her hand on his thigh, the long fingers moving slowly. Slowly. It was happening again and he had no moisture in his mouth.

‘Run the names,’ he said. ‘That’s good work. And if you’ve got time, do a biog on a Donald Trilling, Pharmentis Corp, that’s P-H-A-R.’

‘Certainly, sir. Enjoy your rest.’

‘Who said anything about rest?’

Her fingers were lying on him, doing nothing, he could feel each finger. Then they closed and she had him in her grip, a silken, strong grip. And there was something to grip.

‘Calling for pizza again?’ she said.

‘A victim of night hunger.’

‘Me too.’

He turned and she put her right hand to his head, he got his mouth on her breast, tried to engulf it, the whole breast, her, the whole of her.