The Weaver Fish (24 page)

32

They took the tram to its upper terminus, just outside the Palace entry, and walked back down Ahorte, the beautiful tramway boulevard connecting the Palace to the pier, as far as the Kardia, the main square of Madregalo. Nicholas secured an outdoor table at a café, while Worse found a tourist shop. He returned with a map of the city and sat down, unfolding it to study the central streets. Nicholas ordered coffees. Worse spoke without looking up from the map.

‘What did you decide to say to Millie about the families?'

‘I have told her the story, as well as I remember.'

‘We remember the vivid.'

Nicholas was left to interpret this as approval. When the waiter reappeared with their order, Worse refolded his map with conspicuous ineptitude and asked innocently about the festivities in town.

‘Tomorrow is the biggest day for Madregalo, for the Ferendes. It is the signing of the treaty, the great peace and cooperation pact with the Envoy. The Entente.'

‘Envoy?'

‘Admiral Feng, the Chinese Envoy. The Ferendes will be rich, and protected by our great friend, the People's Republic. Tomorrow, I will take my son to watch our biggest day. They will have the ceremony on the pier.'

When the waiter had moved away, Nicholas and Worse exchanged looks. Worse placed the map on the table and leaned over, speaking quietly.

‘That was a well-rehearsed enthusiasm. Lacking something, though, didn't you think?'

‘Authenticity,' agreed Nicholas.

‘Joy,' added Worse. He looked around. Work teams were in the square, erecting enormous portraits of Prince Nefari and Admiral Feng, along with rows of flags of the two nations. ‘It's depressing how some things never change. Hegemony, exploitation, empire.'

‘Anyway, Feng's not a diplomat, he's a criminal,' said Nicholas, lowering his voice when the waiter came close.

‘He may be both.'

As Worse reached for his coffee, they heard sirens approaching. A police car followed by a black limousine entered the Kardia from the south on Ahorte, and stopped about fifteen metres from their café. The occupant of the limousine opened the tinted rear window and surveyed the activities in the square.

‘Admiral Feng,' their waiter announced. ‘He will be visiting the Palace.'

Feng's gaze rested approvingly on his own portrait before glancing at the café, where he found his eyes locked on the uncompromising stare of Worse.

‘Look down at the map, Nicholas,' Worse instructed his companion sharply. His own face was partly concealed by the coffee cup, held before his mouth with two hands, elbows resting on the table. Feng sat forward slightly, as if to be absolutely sure of the insolence he was witnessing. Worse's stare didn't falter. The waiter, unnerved by the Admiral's apparent attention, retreated to the kitchen. Half a minute later, Feng's window closed, the siren restarted, and the motorcade resumed its course.

‘Through no fault of my own, I seem to have come to the Admiral's notice,' observed Worse drily.

‘I thought the Zheng visit presaged that fairly convincingly. What happened to Zheng, by the way?'

‘Not entirely sure. Dropped out of sight, quicker than he came.'

Worse reached into his bag for his laptop and opened it on his knee. The locations of the two satellite phones identified from Fiendisch's call history were converging, and he was now sure which party attached to each. It didn't surprise him to confirm that the first call Fiendisch had made when the winery exploded was to Feng, not Nefari. He took up his mobile and dialled Nefari. It was about thirty seconds before the ringtone sounded, at which
time it was immediately answered without greeting. Worse guessed that it was a personal handset, and didn't waste time with niceties.

‘Listen carefully, Nefari. Feng isn't just ripping up forests in the north for timber. He's mining. He's shipping out rare earths worth a fortune monetarily and strategically. That's the mineral wealth of your people, and he's not paying for it. Go up to the plain and see for yourself. There're also massive hydrocarbon prospects offshore. Your shore. Feng will pump it dry to the PRC. Don't sign the Entente tomorrow.'

‘Who is this?'

‘Tell Feng that ugly godson met certain death. Good, there's Feng at the Palace door now.'

‘Zheng is dead?'

Worse ended the call. Nicholas had gone into the café to pay their bill, and returned in time to hear the last few words. He thought Worse was joking at his expense.

‘Who was that? Prince Nefari himself, I suppose. On speaking terms, are you?'

‘I did most of the talking,' Worse said.

Nicholas's smile vanished. ‘Jesus, Worse. What have you done?' He looked around anxiously. ‘This is a police state, for Christ's sake. We had better get moving.'

Worse folded his laptop and returned it to his backpack, along with the map. Then, with his hands concealed within the pack, he removed the SIM card from his mobile, replacing it with another.

‘Sure,' he said belatedly, and stood up.

Across the square from their café, on its northern perimeter, was the historic main branch of Banco Ferende, its façade now partly obscured by national flags. Nicholas pointed it out to Worse, almost ruefully. It had served him well when he lived at the LDI station, and he liked its manager. He decided that today he would not pay his respects as he might normally have done when in the city. Even though Nicholas felt certain that Mr Denari could not be corrupt, the bank itself was demonstrably manipulated by the Prince and Feng Tong.

There was still half an hour before they were to meet Nicholas's contacts, in a church a short distance to the east. By now, Worse's
insouciance had calmed Nicholas, and he was keen to show his friend something on the way. He led Worse across the square.

The centre of the Kardia was dominated by a beautiful fountain, sculpted in glass. From some distance, Worse thought he was looking at a large, rather featureless semi-transparent ice cube with water running down its sides into a circular pool. But as he approached, he could discern its finer form, that the apparent block was a three-dimensional tapestry of fish interwoven most ingeniously.

Encircling the pool were park benches made of stainless steel and heavy cast glass, and several people were sitting, eating snack lunches, reading, or just looking.

‘Weaver fish,' said Nicholas quietly.

Worse said nothing. He walked a short distance around the pool, to where there was a vacant seat, but remained standing, staring at the sculpture. Although the object was in front of him, he was trying to recompose its geometry in his mind, trying to understand it, understand how the artist could have made something so beautiful, so impossible, but solid and real.

Nicholas followed Worse around, sitting down behind him, observing his friend with more interest than he had for the fountain. They were like that for ten minutes, when Worse turned to him.

‘You must tell me about weaver fish, Nicholas.'

Nicholas stood up as Worse set off distractedly in the direction of St Alonzo's. Halfway across the open space, Nicholas received a call from his friends. They were unable to meet after all, and were reluctant to talk on the phone. He reported this to Worse, whose only response was to change direction, heading for where they had parked the rental car.

Worse was not the first to be entranced by
Otavio Fitrina'
s glass fountain. Computer simulations have determined the optimal ‘crystalline' structure of a three-dimensional woven array of weaver fish to be a rectangular prism, and the sculptor has chosen the cube. The secret to the quite magical interior detail is that it was cast sequentially in cubic laminations (there are sixteen). The glass used in each successive casting was composed to have a lower melting point than the previous layer, which was tempered and pre-cooled. In this way, sculptural detail was preserved throughout the solid form. During manufacture, the progressively enlarging core was centred on a tubular titanium mandrel, which now functions as the fountain water conduit.

There is a small but erudite literature on the flotation physics of the weaver fish superstructure, and how it might be supported. Those fish above the water's surface lose buoyancy, and it is hypothesized that their weight must be balanced by a subsurface platform of weaver fish arrayed to swim (albeit stationary) uniformly upward, and so precisely numbered as to satisfy equilibrium of forces. Fitrina has portrayed this base layer of vertically columned fish, though it is difficult to discern beneath the water.

Visitors are advised that the fountain is the most frequently, but most incompetently, photographed attraction in Madregalo, and are urged to purchase one of the beautiful professional images offered commercially, even as postcards. These were obtained using specialized strobe lamp trans-illumination and a research-quality light-field camera, where the image is resynthesized digitally in post-production. The technique reproduces extraordinarily the intricacy of weaver fish intercalation deep within the sculpture.

You may notice that the fountain water is very slightly purplish, and that seagulls, which are generally a nuisance in the square, never settle in the surrounding pool. The explanation is given that weaver fish, by their nature barely visible, inhabit its depths. Whatever the truth of this, the possibility has certainly deterred vandals.

33

Worse asked Nicholas to do the driving to La Ferste. They were both quiet. The forty-kilometre drive was slowed by roadworks and survey teams planning the new motorway, and in places the temporary detour loops were barely passable. Half an hour into the journey, Worse took his mobile from the backpack and pressed a number. Names were not exchanged.

‘I can't make my report until I get some help with punctuation,' said Worse. ‘Can you recommend a grammarian in these parts?'

‘I expected you to ask before you left, and I have a name right here. He's a philatelist, but a most accomplished apostrophist as well. You will find him excellent.'

‘He wouldn't like Verita's, would he? How will I know him?'

‘By his incomparable grammar. And he speaks ... elliptically. I will tell him to expect you.'

Worse wrote down some details, finishing the call with, ‘Thank you.' He then leaned forward to program an address into the car's GPS. Nicholas contained his curiosity only to that point.

‘What was that about? I can help with grammar, for heaven's sake.'

‘Not this variety. Special punctuator with remote full stopping. Victor is helping. Do you mind following the instructions?' Worse leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. It wasn't difficult for Nicholas to decode.

‘Jesus, Worse. Do we need that sort of thing here? You can't seriously be thinking of, you know, the Prince.'

‘We are thinking seriously of everything, Nicholas.'

Worse hadn't opened his eyes. He was quiet for a full minute, then added, ‘Feng is on top. Feng runs Nefari and Nefari runs
Banco Ferende. Feng ran Fiendisch and Fiendisch ran the Humboldt. Feng ran Fiendisch and Fiendisch ran his team of killers, Stronk and the other two. Feng ran Zheng. Feng runs the northern operation. Feng will run the Entente.'

Worse was quiet for another minute, then spoke again. ‘So, Feng ordered me dead. Feng ordered you dead. Feng ordered Millie dead. Feng is the one. Don't waste sympathy on him.'

Nicholas didn't respond, and the only voice in the car for the next hour was synthesized in the satnav, guiding them onto the Marshal Yiscosh Expressway. The address was on the other side of the city centre, over the Peril River, and they crossed on the spectacular CoshEx suspension bridge. When Nicholas slowed at the east-side toll plaza, Worse woke up.

‘When you get there, drive past while I have a look. We'll park in the next block. You should wait in the car and I'll walk back.'

No more was said. Worse didn't catch sight of the address as they passed, but he had a street number to identify it, and set off along the footpath. It was a good area of town, with several antique map shops, philatelists, coin and medallion traders, and rare-book sellers. Normally, Worse would have enjoyed browsing in all of them, and perusing his prize purchases in one of the cafés that he passed.

He pushed open the door of No 303. A short, white-haired, bespectacled man was completing a transaction with a customer. Worse looked at some sheets of historic Ferende stamps, many with depictions of a chariot seemingly drawn by condors in a two-by-two harness. He was studying a framed etching of Madregalo from the sea, dated 1916, when the owner approached him.

‘Can I help you?'

‘My friend said that you might assist me with stationery, that sort of thing.'

‘What is your friend's name?'

Worse stayed silent, looking at the man as if there hadn't been a question.

‘What is your friend's ... affliction?'

‘Headaches,' Worse replied without hesitation. The other smiled slightly.

‘How are his headaches, poor man?'

‘Bad. Every time I speak with him, he's getting one.'

‘Ah. He must find you ... perplexing.' It was Worse's turn to smile.

The owner latched the door to the street, and invited Worse into a rear room, instructing him to stay there while he disappeared down a hallway. He returned with a parcel in plain paper, and handed it to Worse, gesturing for him to sit down in an armchair. Before sitting, Worse held the package for several seconds, as if appraising its contents by weight. He then sat down and unfolded the paper carefully. Under the paper was a new oilcloth wrapping, which Worse unwound like swaddling, all the time feeling the weight, feeling the balance as he held it. He knew exactly what was in his hands before seeing it, and was pleased. It was his favourite weapon, a Totengraber 9 with integrated Prussica sight; like Zheng's, but a model variant.

‘Your friend chose.'

‘He is a good friend.'

Worse opened the breach and held the barrel to the light. He removed the ammunition clip and checked it was full. With the magazine empty he squeezed the trigger, listening and feeling, his eyes closed in concentration. It released with the purest German accent that only a Totengraber could sound. Then he held it to the light again, backwards, squinting to compare the diffraction symmetries in the barrel and the sight.

‘Not many ... do that.'

Worse acknowledged the comment with the slightest tilt of his head, and brought the weapon close to his nose; he was smelling the metal, the oils, and for residue. Satisfied, he held the clip up questioningly.

‘Only one. Your friend said you use ... punctuation ... sparingly.'

Worse smiled as he reassembled the pistol and wrapped it. ‘How much do I owe you?'

‘Your friend paid.'

Worse stared at him, then put the package in his backpack. Standing up, he offered his hand, which the other took, before leading Worse back into the shop and unlatching the outer door.

‘Wait,' he said to Worse, and stepped across the shop to collect the Madregalo etching. At the counter, he wrapped it in tissue
paper and placed it in a thin brown carry bag.

‘This is ... from me,' he said, handing it to Worse.

Worse stared at him again. It was rare to meet a man and learn almost nothing about him, except that he was good.

‘Thank you.'

Worse stepped onto the street and set off quickly toward the car. Nicholas saw him in a mirror and unlocked the car as he approached.

‘Successful?' Nicholas looked doubtfully at the carry bag as Worse settled into the passenger seat.

‘Yes. It's a very fine etching of Madregalo, dated 1916.'

‘Tøssentern will enjoy looking at that,' said Nicholas. He started the engine and pulled out into the traffic.

At the entrance to their hotel, a valet took their car. Nicholas went up to his room, which he was sharing with Millie. Worse seated himself in the lobby to observe comings and goings for a while. Satisfied that they had not been followed, at least into the hotel, he went to the elevator station.

When he rang Nicholas's room bell, he was pleased to see Millie open the door—at least she was well enough to do that. She invited him in and closed it behind him.

‘Nicholas is having a shower. Would you like some tea?'

‘Yes, thank you. But how are you? Did you get a good rest?' It was really to make that enquiry that Worse had come to her room.

‘I feel completely fine. Whatever it was, gone.' Millie made a dismissal gesture with her hand as she walked into a kitchenette to make tea.

‘Has Nicholas told you about our day?'

‘Some. Not all, I'm sure. I want to see the fountain that held you in thrall.'

Worse smiled at the language she, or Nicholas, used to describe him.

‘I think you will be held in thrall, too. It's very subtle, which I know to be your preference.'

‘And the treaty thing tomorrow. Are we going?'

‘Definitely,' said Worse. ‘Any news of the others?'

‘Edvard phoned from Hong Kong this morning. Their
connection looks good. They should be landing about now. We're planning to have dinner together, just in the hotel. Is that okay for you?'

‘Absolutely. Thank you,' Worse added as Millie handed him tea. He almost dropped it in surprise as she reached up to kiss him on the cheek.

‘Let's sit in there.' Millie led the way into the entry sitting area. She pointed to Worse's carry bag.

‘What have you got there?'

Worse took the framed etching and slipped it out of its tissue wrapping. He handed it to Millie.

‘I found it in a philately shop.'

‘It's very large for a postage stamp,' was her first comment. ‘It's charming. Is this where you were today?' She was examining it minutely.

‘It is where we were today, nearly a century removed.'

Worse finished his tea, and realized he was quite tired.

‘I'm going to rest for a while. What time were you thinking for dinner?'

‘Say, seven? Nicholas and I thought we should do it as room service. It will be more private. They can set up for five people in here.'

‘That's a good idea. I'll be back at seven unless I hear otherwise. Thanks for the tea.' Worse stood up, and his voice changed in tone. ‘Millie, make sure you use the door lens before opening, please.'

‘I will.'

To emphasize her compliance, she used the lens before opening the door to let him out.

A few hours later, at seven o'clock, she opened it again, to let Worse in. Nicholas joined her at the door to welcome him.

Room service had provided an attractive table setting, and brought in comfortable dining chairs. Tøssentern and Anna were already seated, and both stood as Worse entered. Nicholas introduced them, invited everyone to sit, and offered drinks. Worse had been carrying his backpack in one hand, and he placed it on the floor to one side before taking the vacant space
next to Anna. She smiled at him as he sat, but said nothing. Tøssentern addressed Worse.

‘We've been told about some remarkable adventures in Perth, Worse. We clearly have you to thank for saving these two wonderful people.'

The others joined in a chorus of appreciation. Worse looked across the table to find Millie giving him a joyful smile.

‘Everyone played important parts,' Worse said quietly, and conspicuously altered his posture as if that might change the subject. Anna sensed its meaning.

‘Have you been to the Ferendes before, Richard?'

Worse was slightly startled; only Sigrid called him Richard. He didn't mind, but wondered about its purpose. Nicholas had presumably explained that he was travelling as Richard Magnacart, and he supposed that Anna, quite reasonably, was acknowledging that identity. (Millie, too, had entered the Ferendes on false papers; concerned for her safety, Worse had provided a passport in the name of Millicent Ropey.)

‘No. I might say, though, that I have been well inducted by Nicholas during twelve hours of cultural immersion.'

‘You have an excellent tutor. Nicholas knows more than any of us about this mysterious place,' offered Tøssentern.

Anna had continued to hold Worse's attention during this interruption, and spoke again. ‘I hope you saw the Fitrina fountain.'

‘I am told a witness account has it that I was in thrall.' Worse looked from Anna to Nicholas, and back. Anna smiled.

‘Not surprisingly. Do you know about its fabrication?'

‘Nicholas explained it a little. An ensemble cast, you might call it.'

Anna smiled again. Tøssentern leaned forward.

‘Or matryoshki perhaps, in glass. Extraordinary.'

The others were quiet, accommodating this new image to the object. It was almost impossible not to be drawn into the abstraction, to bring metaphor to, and take metaphor from, Fitrina's masterpiece. Nicholas was the next to speak.

‘They say there is an invisible hollow network, like a maze, throughout the casting and that if you could find the entry or
exit and pump coloured dye into it you would see writing and it would be the magical words that let you escape from inside, escape from the weaver fish.'

‘So Fitrina cast a spell. Surely that's apocryphal,' rejoined Anna.

Worse appreciated the play; it was something that Sigrid might have said. In fact, Anna reminded him of Sigrid in many ways.

‘Invisible within glass. How are we to trust our senses?' mused Tøssentern.

It was Anna who had raised the subject of the fountain and, as the others talked, its metaphoric reach was taking form for her. Those troubling meditations during dinner with the two Penelopes had left her seeing Thornton's greenhouse differently. It was a built emblem of the forced cohabitation of opposites, like winter and summer, the expressed and the private, the fictitious and the real. And glass, that most illusory of materials essential to its making, far from contributing clarity, gave concealment to the paradox.

And here was Fitrina's brilliance, nesting glass inside glass, hiding conceit within conceit, refracting fable into fable; complete with the promise of some authorial thread coursing through, to make sense of it all.

Anna thought of something else that had troubled her from that evening in Chaucer Road. It might also be sculptural, made layer on layer: Edvard's interminable progression of masquerades spilling forward into the figment, or the person, of Barnabas Bending. Tøssentern was speaking again.

‘By the way, Worse, I think you know Rodney Thwistle. He was very keen for me to give you his regards. Whenever your name comes up, he goes into a sort of fugue state and talks about pixelation, for some reason.'

‘The defective pixelation algorithm. We had a short correspondence on the subject, years ago. So he's still worrying about it. That's surprising.'

Worse sounded sympathetic. He liked Thwistle, and made an instant judgement. After all, even equipped with the algorithm, decryption required information about the error statistics. And
it was only a matter of time before someone else discovered it. Fiendisch apparently had, or was very close.

‘When you next see him, please pass on my regards, and say that I have a solution for the DPA that he is welcome to study. Only, he will need to come to Perth, make a holiday of it.' Worse knew this was a mischievous offer.