After Annaliese's father, Gerhardt Leys, and her sister had returned to Germany her uncle Udo had stayed on and had stoically watched the family fortunes remorselessly decline. Carriscant climbed the stairs and pushed open the office door. There was no secretary in the vestibule and in the office itself Udo was nowhere to be seen. The walls were lined with empty glass humidors and extravagant posters for Manila cigars. In the 1870s and 1880s the brothers had had the field more or less to themselves. Now there were eight cigar and cigarette factories in Manila alone: no-one needed to buy from Udo Leys any longer and he had been obliged to diversify, operating an opportunistic import-export business, waiting for a need to manifest itself and then racing desperately to supply it, whether it was bicycles or perfume, cattle feed or fancy goods. The last time Carriscant had seen him, Udo had told him in a conspiratorial whisper that he had seventy-five upright pianos in a warehouse in Tondo. 'Think of all those new American schools,' he said, his voice ripe with the allure of profit, 'all those assembly rooms… Who will play the 'Stars and Stripes'? They'll be gone within a week.' Carriscant smiled, remembering the old man's impregnable conviction, and wandered to the window. The noise here was infernal: in the courtyard below ten men were making buckets.
He turned at the sound of a door opening and saw Udo emerge from a small cupboard at the rear of the office carrying a chamber pot, the buttons on his flies still undone. He looked unwell, a stout, compressed old man with a florid, noduled face and a small ungroomed bristling moustache that looked as if it were trying to grow in four directions simultaneously.
'Ah, Salvador, my boy, what a pleasant surprise,' he said. 'One second and I'm with you.'
He limped to the window, opened it and flung the contents of the chamber pot over the bucket makers. The hammering never faltered.
Udo shrugged. 'Those shit bastards are meant to stop at lunchtime, but who cares?' He spoke English with a marked German accent. Carriscant shook his extended left hand as the right still clutched the chamber pot: he was fond of the old man but Annaliese liked to keep contact to a minimum. Udo set the pot on the desk and wiped some drops of moisture off his fingers on to the blotter. He opened a drawer and offered Carriscant a cigar, which he declined.
Udo waggled his plump fingers over the display, selected a cigar and rolled it sensuously under his veined and bulbous nose.
' La Flor de la Isabella,' he said, wistfully. 'As good as the finest Havana. Have I ever told you that?'
'Emphatically,' Carriscant said. 'How are the pianos going?'
'Slowly. Did I tell you I was opening a laundry?'
They speculated a while on the inevitable success of this venture before Carriscant told him why he had called. A friend, he said, had ordered a piece of industrial machinery from France and he needed it shipped to Manila, but with discretion. This friend was concerned that as a Filipino he might not be permitted to import such a component.
'What is it?' Udo asked. 'A Howitzer?'
'An engine. It's… it's a special kind of engine. For a type of automobile.'
'Is he building a motor car? Very shrewd. I saw one the other day, down here at the docks. Astonishing. German, of course.'
'Something like that. And he can't afford to pay the duty.'
Udo assured him that the whole matter was very straightforward. It might cost a little extra but he knew many agreeable ships' captains and many shipping firms who would be happy to oblige. If the engine could be conveyed to Hong Kong then from that point forward the maximum discretion could be assured.
Udo limped to the top of the stairs to see Carriscant off.
'What's wrong, Udo?'
'Gout, or something. My leg's changing colour. Turning blue.'
'Come to the hospital, I'll have a look at it.'
'You'll have it off, more likely.' He looked at him dolefully. 'No disrespect, Salvador, but I don't trust you lot.'
He called down the stairs: 'How's Annaliese?'
'Ah… Well. Very well.'
'I'd love to see her again.'
'Of course, Udo. Very soon. Thanks for your help.'
Paton Bobby's office was on the second floor of the Ayuntamiento, Manila 's town hall, a huge over decorated coral and white building on the Plaza Mayor adjacent to the cathedral. Bobby sat behind his desk, out of uniform, wearing a light tweed suit and a bow tie. The effect was surprising: as if the burly law officer had turned into a university professor or music teacher. From his chair Carriscant could see one of the cathedral's domed towers with a seagull sitting preening itself on the top of the surmounting cross. Bobby was informing him of the series of unsatisfactory interviews he had undertaken with the men of Ephraim Ward's platoon: it seemed unlikely now, he reluctantly concluded, that Ward had been murdered by a fellow soldier.
The gull hunched itself into the air and soared off beyond the frame of the window.
'Somebody got him, though. He left his post and somebody fucking got him.'
Carriscant shifted in his seat: Ephraim Ward's fate seemed remote from him now.
'He definitely wasn't shot, was he? Someone couldn't have gouged out a bullet? You thought he was stabbed, right?' Bobby scratched his skull through his thin hair with the end of a pencil.
'I'm sure. By the way, Cruz has still not returned the heart. The liver, but not the heart.' Carriscant closed his eyes briefly and tried to set his tone of voice to neutral. 'My wife,' he began slowly, 'my wife met an American woman at one of her church functions the other night but she's completely forgotten her name. A young woman, late twenties, tall, freckled with reddish brown hair. Apparently'
'Jesus, Carriscant, do you know how many American women there are out here now? Wives, nurses, missionaries, teachers… Must be hundreds.'
'I told her. She wanted me to ask all the same… ' He paused. 'Perhaps she has a position of authority, some rank. She mentioned the Malacanan Palace. Some sporting club?'
Bobby thought. 'Reddish hair, you say. Quite a striking woman?'
'Yes. I mean, as far as I can gather.'
'Now you mention it, it sounds rather like Miss Caspar. What's her name? Unusual… Yeah, Miss Rudolfa Caspar. Rudolfa, that's it.'
'Miss?'
'Headmistress of the Gerlinger school. The new one in Binondo.'
'Thank you, I'll tell my wife.'
The conversation returned once again to Ward's murder, Carriscant suggesting it could be any criminal from the Tondo slums, Bobby reluctant to concede it might be as random as that. They walked to the door and Bobby followed him on to the wide marble landing above the main staircase.
'But why dump him miles away?' Bobby was saying. 'Why not leave him where he fell?'
A uniformed man walked by, stopped and turned. 'Hello, Bobby,' he said. 'Any news?'
Bobby introduced him to Carriscant – a Colonel Sieverance. He had a pleasant, boyish face and a thin moustache, a little patchy. If that was the best quality bristle your face could produce, Carriscant thought, then it would be better to go clean-shaven. Colonel Sieverance seemed remarkably young to hold such an elevated rank, and there was something familiar about him too, Carriscant thought… Perhaps they had met before, somewhere.
'Ward used to be in the colonel's regiment,' Bobby explained. 'Dr Carriscant examined the body-he has been most helpful.'
Sieverance smiled, he had an engaging, enthusiastic manner, not in the least warlike or military, Carriscant thought. 'A doctor?' he said, gladly. 'Are you a physician, sir?'
'- I'm a surgeon, I'm afraid.'
'Damn. Why can't the US army hire a decent physician?' He grinned ruefully. 'Thought you'd made my day. Nice to see you. So long, Bobby.'
'He's on the Governor's staff, now,' Bobby said, watching Sieverance stride off down a corridor. 'Agreeable fellow.'
