‘Glasses?’ Baader was interested.
‘No. Well, yes.’
‘I like glasses. Black frames?’
‘Me, we’re talking about me. Less about you.’
Baader looked away, bent his head, scratched an ear. ‘To be serious,’ he said, ‘what the fuck would I know? The things that happened to you, I can’t begin to…Well, are you feeling okay?’
‘I’m feeling fine.’
‘The memory?’
‘Bits come back. It doesn’t bother me as much as it used to.’
‘Well, talking can’t hurt. You’ve never talked to me. Who did you talk to?’
‘I’m sorry I mentioned this. Paid Gerda? If not, I’m looking for another job.’
A hand in the air, a stop sign, gentle. ‘John, relax. Gerda’s paid, the landlord’s been paid, everyone’s been paid. We’re up to date on payments. I’m personally skinned but everyone’s been paid.’
Anselm went back to his office. Talked to anyone? What was there to say? How did you talk about fear, about cringing like a whipped child, about pissing in your pants, other things, sobbing uncontrollably, other things?
Carla Klinger knocked. ‘The new file,’ she said. ‘The chemist. He flew to London. Now I’ve got him on a flight to Los Angeles from Glasgow, took off an hour ago.’
It was a second before he placed the chemist. Yes. The chemist’s company in Munich thought he was planning to defect to the competition. Five years he’d been on a research project, they were close.
‘That’s good work, Carla. Tell the client.’
She smiled her cursory smile, nodded, turned on the stick.
Good work? Thieves, contract thieves, spying, stealing to order, stealing anything for anyone. Anselm thought about the woman they’d found in Barcelona, Lisa Campo. He remembered his reply to Inskip’s question.
For all they knew, Charlie Campo wanted to find his wife so that he could torture her and kill her. For all they cared. Just a job with a success bonus. Good work? He’d enjoyed it at the start, four of them using Baader’s purloined software, learning how to search the waters for a single rare fish, the net ever expanding, dropping deeper. Sitting in a quiet room, in the gloom, watching the radar, waiting for the blip, waiting for the coelecanth. He’d felt removed from himself, a relief from the running introspection, the endless, pointless internal dialogue. Just the quiet lulling of the electronic turbines, the hard drives spinning, spinning, spinning. But now…
Anselm went down the passage to Beate’s office. She wasn’t there. He was grateful not to have to endure her remarks about health as he went onto the balcony to smoke.
A cold day but dry, patches of blue coming and going in the high, wispy cloud. In line with Poseldorf, a ferry with a ragged tail of gulls was cutting through the chop. Kael and Serrano would be off their ferry by now.
Alex Koenig.
He could ring her to say he would talk to her about what had happened to him. Within limits. He could set limits, things he wouldn’t talk about, the parameters of their talk.
What was the point of that? How could he set limits? What would they be?
Beate tapped on the glass. Anselm flicked his cigarette end into the garden below-not a garden, just balding lawn and unpruned leaf-spotted roses, no one cared.
This would be Tilders. He went inside. Beate smiled her beatific smile.
‘I’d have brought the phone but I saw you were almost finished with that vile thing.’
‘You’re never finished with vile things,’ said Anselm.
24
…LONDON…
The store was warm and fragrant, like a palace in a dream. As Niemand wandered around, the expensive scents of the women shoppers brushed his face, clung to him. On an escalator, he stood behind three youngish Japanese women in grey, sleek as pigeons, eyes rounded by the knife. They appeared to be crying.
When he’d finished looking, riding the escalators, he left by a back exit and walked around the block. He found a spot to watch the front doors and dialled. Caroline Wishart answered on the third ring.
He told her where he was, where to go.
He didn’t see her go into the store, there were two entrances, the pavement was crowded. After a while, he crossed the street, went into the store through the right-hand doors, turned right and climbed the stairs to the third floor. He went through jewellery and handbags, around four Asian women talking in undertones, rings on their fingers flashing like lights. At the escalator, he dialled again.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘I got bored,’ he said. ‘I’m on the fourth floor looking at the toys. Come up the escalator next to the stationery, in the corner, know where that…’ ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know.’
He waited, saw her pass. Waited, watched the people, dialled her again.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘you’ll have to come down again. To the second floor.’
‘Don’t mess me around,’ she said. ‘This isn’t a spy film.’
He looked at his watch, stepped onto the up escalator.
Caroline Wishart didn’t see him until the last second, when he was offering the package. She opened her mouth to speak, closed it, held out the bag with one hand, took the package in the other.
Niemand took the bag.
‘Goodbye,’ he said.
He walked up the escalator, three people ahead of him, bag in his left hand, three steps at a time, glanced back. She was off the escalator, half hidden by a man in a dark suit. Another man was in front of her, facing her, close.
When he turned his head, looked up, he saw a woman at the top of the escalator, back to him, a young woman in black, dark hair on her shoulders, talking on a cellphone held in her right hand, her head back.
Niemand thought: Who do these people phone? Who phones them? What do they have to say to each other? He looked down, watched the metal belt slide beneath the shiny steel plate, he’d always felt some unease at the moment; in his life he had been on escalators no more than a few dozen times.
He was taking the step to solid ground, to safety, when the woman on the cellphone raised her left hand, fingers spread, her hand moving, her fingers speaking.
She had hair on her knuckles, dark hair.
She turned, less than two metres from him, smiling, a nice smile, big mouth, dark lipstick, brought the cellphone away from her head, looking at it, chest-high.
Niemand took a pace and dived at the man in drag.
He was in the air when he saw the two short black barrels protruding from the top of the phone.
He heard nothing. Saw only a lick of flame.
The blow was high in his chest, no great pain.
Fuck, he thought, why didn’t I expect this?
Then he had his left hand on the weapon, brought his right hand down the man’s face, clawed his face, nails just long enough to gouge flesh from forehead, eyebrows, eyelids, cheekbones. He made a screeching noise, then Niemand had his fingers hooked behind the man’s lower lip, nails beneath the teeth, wrenching.
The man in drag was not prepared for this kind of attack, this kind of ferocity, this kind of pain. Blood running into his eyes, blind, he let Niemand drag him to his knees. Niemand got the weapon away from him, no resistance, let go the jaw, kneed him in the head twice, three times, the man fell sideways, head hit the carpet, the wig was half off, near-shaven skull revealed, pale, shocking.
Niemand jumped on his head, kicked it, looked around, grabbed the sports bag, suddenly aware of the people, shouting.
Go down, said his instincts.
