In the Evil Day

more than they come.’

‘This particular one.’

‘No. It has no meaning.’

Anselm looked into the pale blue eyes and he thought, I don’t know what this answer means. I don’t know what he thinks about anything.

I’ve never seen beyond his eyes.

‘I’ve got to get back,’ Anselm said. ‘Instructions?’

O’Malley tapped the envelope. ‘When I’ve read it. Tell your crack team I’ll be sending around a little something of appreciation if this bears fruit.’

Anselm was getting up.

‘Sit for a moment.’

He sat.

‘I say this en passant,’ said O’Malley. He was inserting his car key into the envelope, concentrating.

‘Yes?’

‘Lourens is messy. Even after death.’

He didn’t look up, ran the key through the yellow paper, slowly.

‘These smart boys,’ said O’Malley. ‘They had a lot of money lying around doing nothing, this is pre-Mandela South Africa. So they lent some to Lourens. Well, not to him personally, to a company owned by his wife, it’s registered in the UK. Lourens is a chemist by training and he promised them big returns. Some story about a breakthrough drug delivery system. Well, they got bugger all, then the big white dream-time ended. These boys waited till the new mob, bribed to the earlobes, let them shift their ill-gotten out of the country and they were gone. They’re in Australia now, big in bio-tech, cutting edge in the fight against snoring, hot flushes, jock itch. Also manufacturing, they’re applying the old South African talents to a new labour force, chaining the Asian poor to the wheel.’

‘They sold you the debt.’

‘A fully documented debt. My point is, the Sud-Afs were scared of Lourens. One of the charmers said, this is after we’ve done the deal, bought the debt, he says, good luck and sooner you than me, pal, they call you pal this lot, he says Lourens is poison himself and he’s been in bed with even more dangerous people.’

O’Malley had the report out, looking at the first page. ‘That’s it,’ he said.

‘Thanks for the background.’

Without looking up, O’Malley said, ‘You aren’t a journalist anymore, John. That part of your life is over.’

Anselm walked down fume-acrid Sierichstrasse, thinking about what had been. Once his trade had been going to sad and violent places and telling their stories, telling stories of death and barbarism, selling the stories.

The occupation seemed to have chosen him and it was without glamour or reward. Still, there was a certain dirty-faced dignity and pride in being the person who went where other people didn’t want to go, asked questions they wouldn’t ask, saw things they would rather not see.

But that was gone forever. He didn’t need O’Malley to tell him what he wasn’t.

Kaskis once said of a famous New York Times reporter, ‘Covers wars from his hotel room. The dog’s gun-shy.’

Gun-shy, that’s what he was. He should leave Lourens and Niemand and films of Angolan villages alone.

As he walked down the howling street, he rubbed his useless fingers. My dead bits, he thought, the bits visibly and tangibly dead.

64

…HAMBURG…

Inskip saw him coming in and raised an arm, the wrist cocked, a pale and bony index finger pointing. Anselm went to his side.

‘I have entered the temple wherein all men’s secrets are known,’ said Inskip. ‘It was a fucking doddle. But Joseph Elias Diab’s file is marked ‘Out to Agency’. Permanently removed.’

‘What agency?’

‘Defense Intelligence Agency.’

‘There endeth the lesson,’ said Anselm.

‘Tilders wants you to call. Soonest. That’s about ten minutes ago. Beate put him through to me, why I cannot think. Carla’s here, she’s the logical person to take your calls. The senior person.’

‘Perhaps Beate favours you, dreams of the touch of your nicotine-scented fingers.’

He went to his office and rang Tilders. The line was strange, an echo, as if Tilders were in a tunnel.

Tilders said, ‘The present matter, there is something…’

‘Yes?’

‘Brussels?’

‘Yes?’

‘That person is dead, a suicide, in his office. A gun. Our party called him, they told him that.’

Bruynzeel dead. Anselm remembered the man’s voice, his wry, weary tone.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

Bruynzeel, the account in Serrano’s Credit Raceberg, recipient of large loans.

A suicide.

He got up and found Tilders’ audiotape, DT/HH /31/02, put it in the machine.

Serrano at his hotel, talking to the Bruynzeel of Bruynzeel amp; Speelman Chemicals in Brussels.

Bruynzeel: They want what?

Serrano: Records. Anything. Everything.

Bruynzeel: You have records?

Serrano: No.

Bruynzeel: Well, just shut up. It’s all bluff. These things pass. Just keep your mouth shut. Trilling’s connections, there’s no problem.

Serrano: You can talk to him?

Bruynzeel: I’ll see. Things in the past, no one wants to talk about the past.

Anselm sat, touching the lost fingers, the Beirut fingers. Cold, they were always cold, like Fraulein Einspenner’s fingers when he held them.

Trilling’s connections.

Trilling. Who was Trilling?

Anselm called up the search engine and typed in trilling.

There was no shortage of Trillings. The search engine found 21,700 references.

Bruynzeel amp; Speelman Chemicals.

Lourens is a chemist by training… O’Malley said that. Perhaps Trilling was in the same line… A long shot. Anselm added chemicals to the search.

Too many.

Try drugs.

The first reference said:

Pharmentis Corporation president Donald Trilling tonight defended his company’s record on the pricing of drugs sold to the third world.

The phone.

Beate, sandpaper voice. ‘A Dr Koenig for you.’

‘Thank you.’

Alex.

‘Is this a bad time?’