Lime's Photograph (45 page)

I rang Clara from Moscow. She answered on the third ring. She sounded out of breath and her voice had a metallic edge from the satellite.

“Clara, it’s me,” I said.

“Oh, Peter. It’s good to hear your voice. Are you well? Where are you?”

“Moscow. I’m flying home this evening.”

“Is everything all right?”

It was in her blood. She wouldn’t say anything straight out on the phone.

“Everything’s all right. There’s nothing more to be said. It’s all over.”

“In a way you can live with?”

“Maybe not always. There will be nightmares, things I regret, but I can live with that. I have to. Especially if you’ll share it with me. Come to Madrid.”

“Why, Peter?”

“I need someone to carry my tripod.”

She laughed.

“Why, Peter? Come on, say it.”

“I need you.”

“That was a step forwards,” she said.

“You know what I mean.”

“Possibly. But sometimes it’s good to put things into words.”

“Will you come?” I asked, almost forcing myself to plead with her.

“What am I going to live on?”

“I’ve got plenty of money.”

“Be serious. What will I do?”

“Carry my tripod.”

She laughed again, but I could hear the uncertainty in her laughter. I sensed that she was just as uncertain as I was, but I had the advantage. The stakes were lower for me. The connection sizzled in my ear. Modern technology, the hotel’s satellite system sending the signal thousands of kilometres up into the atmosphere and down again to Clara. There were a couple of thousand kilometres between us, but our voices travelled 40,000. I sat quietly and let the moment tick by in the faintly whistling silence. Looking down at the traffic far below, it seemed that the entire population of Moscow was on its way somewhere or other, as usual. A thaw had set in and the streets were awash with slush. The biggest and most lethal-looking icicles I had ever seen in my life were dangling from the building opposite. Pedestrians in Moscow lived dangerously in many ways. I missed Madrid and my house.

“I don’t know. I don’t know if I dare. I’m thinking about those delicate wings,” Clara said after a long while.

“You said yourself that the first burn is the worst.”

“I can’t give you an answer. At least not now,” she said.

“I need you, Clara. Come to Madrid.”

“We’ll see. Perhaps I’ll visit. Perhaps I won’t. Perhaps it’s best to let it stop here. I just don’t know. But take care.”

It sounded like she was about to cry, and perhaps that’s why she hung up. I couldn’t really tell what I felt. I sat for a long time just holding the receiver and looking out of the window, suddenly not able to see anything. My life seemed meaningless, and I was as exhausted
emotionally as my aching body was tired. But at the same time I felt liberated. I didn’t quite know why, and I had absolutely nothing to base it on, but the conversation with Clara had given me hope.

“Funny old language, Danish,” said Sjuganov.

He was sitting in my suite, vodka in hand. One of his arms was strapped up and he had a large plaster on one of his temples. He had also arranged for a doctor to see to me. My knee was badly swollen. I only had two small patches of frostbite on my face, so I had got off lightly. I had been lucky. I had chosen the right direction, and an hour later I had been intercepted by Igor. Despite the snowstorm, trained soldier that he was, he had been able to read the tracks and follow the route Oscar and I had taken down to the river, and the snapped branches and shallow indentations I had made in the snow as I walked and walked along the bank. Sjuganov had called in reinforcements and got a search underway, but he had not alerted the police or any other authorities.

It turned out that Sjuganov had underestimated the big Irishman, who had a knife in a spring-sheath strapped above his wrist. The knife had sunk into Sjuganov’s upper arm and the Irishman had knocked him out with his own gun. Igor had got there too late and had exchanged shots with the second Irishman. Igor had shot him in the leg and then at close range in the head. Lola’s two Russian bodyguards had not been worth their pay cheque. They had legged it, but we weren’t complaining.

“It was carnage,” I said, picking up my drink.

“No one regrets it more than I. It goes without saying that the fee is waived,” he said. “I made the inexcusable error of underestimating the opposition.”

“What about the police?” I said.

He rubbed his right-hand thumb against his index and middle finger in a universal sign.

“Surely that’s not enough,” I said.

“The target will be blamed. There were enough drugs in the villa to get half of Moscow stoned. He killed the woman. He paid the two Irishmen for their services. They, of course, tried to defend her, but were killed whilst discharging their duties. Thus the target chose either suicide or flight across the river and was dragged down under the ice. The river is deep and the current is strong. The gun has disappeared, the golf iron has been found, smeared all over with the woman’s blood. He had only recently arrived in Moscow and was unaware that we had a thaw a couple of weeks ago. The ice was weak. We have on average 20 murders every day here in Moscow. The police are overstretched. They are happy to file a murder case as solved. It earns them points in the media.”

“And Oscar?”

“He’ll surface when the ice breaks up in March. By then everyone will have forgotten about it and we’ll bury him in an unmarked grave.”

I sat thinking for a while.

“Could you arrange for him to be cremated and have the urn sent to me?” I asked.

He looked at me, astonished.

“It will require some paperwork, but it can be arranged. Do you mind if I ask why?”

“There were many sides to Oscar. I know a woman who, in the course of time, would like to remember some of the good ones. I think she would like to have a grave to visit in Madrid. I know that from my own experience. A grave doesn’t put an end to the anger at the injustice of death, but it’s a comfort to be able to berate or talk with those who aren’t here any more. I think she’d like it, even though I’m not going to ask her. She’d only say no.”

“That’s settled then. If the body turns up, it will be arranged. I’ll have a memo sent out to the police districts along the river. Bodies
can float a long way, but they usually appear in the spring. Anglers, a suicide … targets. Consider it a favour.”

“Thank you. So I can leave this evening without any problems?”

“You can go home without a worry.”

He raised his glass.

“All the best on your journey, Mr Lime,” he said, and drained his glass.

I did the same. The vodka was strong and good. I poured him another and one for myself.

“Happy Christmas,” I said.

“And may fortune smile on you in the new year,” he said earnestly and formally, and I was happy to raise my glass to that.

Spring came early, just as winter had come early. It was only late February and the sun was lovely and warm and some of Don Alfonzo’s flowers had begun to bud. I sat in the garden in short sleeves, reading a biography of Hemingway by Kenneth S. Lynn that I had found among Don Alfonzo’s books. It was early afternoon.

I heard a taxi pull up, and Clara got out carrying a little suitcase. She paid the driver and walked towards me. She was wearing trousers and a shirt and sweater, and even had a coat over her arm, as if she had brought the cold, Danish winter with her. She smiled and stopped a few paces from me. I put the book down on the table, got up and walked over to her. The mild spring breeze ruffled her hair.

“Hello, Peter,” she said.

“Hello, Clara. You look fantastic.”

“What wonderful weather you’re having. It’s snowing in Copenhagen.”

“It’s good to see you. But you took your time,” I said.

She glanced away for a moment, but then looked me straight in the eyes again.

“I decided to take a chance. I didn’t want to phone in advance. I put my chips on the roulette table. If you were home, then it was fate. Winnings, maybe. If you weren’t home, then maybe that’s how it was meant to be. I haven’t got a rational explanation, that’s just how it is.”

“A risky thing to do,” I said. “But I’m usually home these days.”

She smiled, moving close to me and I put my arms round her. I tried again to tell her how lovely she looked and how happy I was to see her.

“No more words just now,” she said. “Keep them for later. Kiss me instead!”

I did and much later, in bed, I said, “You haven’t brought much luggage. So you’re maybe not counting on staying very long?”

Her head was on my chest.

“That depends on how long I can stand carrying your tripod. For the time being, I’ve got leave of absence and I’ve sublet my flat until the end of the summer. I’m not a complete fool. We’ll have to see.”

“It’s a beginning, at least,” I said.

“And at our age we can’t really ask for much more. And I’m famished. So you can start by showing me the fridge.”