'I was visiting my cook's mother. She was ill.'
Bobby looked at him, his eyes expressionless. Giving me time to change my story, Carriscant thought. Old policeman's trick.
'A hernia.' Why did he lie? It would be so easy to prove him wrong.
'Wieland never saw you leave. Reckons you spent the night there.'
'What's all this about? Wieland wasn't capable of seeing anything. I left. I didn't see him either, come to that.'
Bobby emptied his toy pipe with a couple of sharp raps on the rim of an ashtray.
'You never went back?'
'No.'
Bobby made a face as if he had just heard baddish news. He stood up, nodded at one of the card-playing businessmen and patted his uniform pockets absentmindedly, as if he had forgotten his wallet.
'I don't want to take up any more of your time, Dr Carriscant, but I'd appreciate it if you'd make one more visit with me.'
'I don't have all day,' Carriscant said, rising to his feet. 'Where are we going?'
The police station at the Parian gate was a building Carriscant had passed hundreds of times without its drawing anything but the most cursory glance from him. It was made of bulik adobe and its ground-floor windows were extravagantly barred, as if baroque cast-iron cages had been built around the window embrasures. Inside it was surprisingly cool, the thick walls fending off the heat of the afternoon sun. Bobby led him down a corridor and swung open an iron-studded wooden door. There was a small desk in the middle of the room occupied by a Filipino constable, and against the opposite wall was a rickety wooden form. An old man was sitting on this, patiently smoking a cigarette. Carriscant recognised him at once.
'Do you know this man?' Bobby asked.
'No.'
The old man began to jabber in Tagalog, pointing his cigarette directly at Carriscant, grinning and chuckling, exposing his few betel-stained teeth.
The constable translated. 'He says he saw this man in the acacia woods between Sampaloc and Nactajan on the morning of that day. He lives in Nactajan. He was gathering firewood at dawn and he found this Americano in the woods. This is the man.'
Bobby turned to Carriscant, his face empty, neutral. 'Is there any truth in this?'
'Of course not.' Carriscant lied instantly, with composure, without fear, for some reason. 'What's going on here, Bobby?'
'We have to follow everything up.' He shrugged. 'The only unusual thing, the only thing that was out of the ordinary around Sampaloc during the time Braun went missing was this 'American' that was seen at dawn. This old fellow here gave us a very accurate description. I have to say the more he went on the more it sounded like you.'
'I've never seen him before in my life.'
'And there's a barca ferryman says he ferried a kastila. At least he spoke Spanish to him. At dawn that same day. But he can't give us any description. Seems all kastilas look the same to him… But somebody, some white man was out around Sampaloc at that time. I want to find out who.'
'You think this man might have killed Braun?'
'I don't know. I'm just investigating.'
The old man started yammering again and everyone looked round. His face was held in a merry, creased grimace as he rocked to and fro, his fist pumping up and down in his lap, his other hand pointing the glowing end of his cigarette at Carriscant. The constable shouted angrily at him to stop.
'What's going on?' Bobby demanded, amazed.
The constable's embarrassment was clear. 'He say this man,' he glanced at Carriscant, 'he say he was holding him pecker. You know, with hand, he was playing-'
'Stop,' Bobby said. 'I heard enough. Get this disgusting old fool out of here.'
Bobby and Carriscant stood in the afternoon sun on the police station's front steps, Carriscant assuring Bobby once again that he was fine, that he understood Bobby had his job to do and that he really wanted to walk back to the hospital.
'I can't tell you how sorry I am,' Bobby repeated. 'Sick old bastard.' He was visibly sweating with embarrassment and discomfort, his thin hair stuck to his scalp in damp strands.
'You had to do your job. Honestly, I'd have done the same.'
'He had you to a tee. Right down to that small scar thing on your eyebrow there… But I guess you're a pretty well-known man in Manila. Small town and all that. He could have seen you at the hospital, anything.' He shook himself with exasperation. 'Crazy old bastard. I mean, what a thing to say…' He grinned ruefully at Carriscant and Carriscant allowed himself a grin of collusion in return.
THE FOUR-CYLINDER 12 H.P. FLANQUIN
Udo Leys had a bad cold, his eyes itched, his nose ran copiously and he had a dull pain in his chest from the dry, baying cough that erupted irregularly in his lungs. He sounded like some strange mythical animal in its rutting season, plaintively seeking a mate, half sea-lion, half ape, he said, his amusement at this notion setting off another coughing bout. It subsided and he blew his nose, wiping his tufty moustache with considerable care.
'I may be an old man,' he said, 'but that's no excuse. There's nothing more disgusting than an old man's moustache when he's got a cold. My own father's, I remember… ' He winced. 'Full of dried snot. It quite put me off my food. You will tell me, Salvador, if I miss anything, please.' He pushed his lumpy face forward for inspection, lifting his soft pulpy nose with a finger.
'Of course, Udo. There's not a trace.'
'Is it far to go?' Pantaleon asked. Carriscant could sense the suppressed tremble of excitement in his friend's lean body. Like a gun dog, quivering with energy and anticipation.
'Ten minutes,' Udo said. 'They cleared customs this afternoon.'
'And there were no problems?'
'I tell you, Dr Quiroga, there is nobody like Nicanor Axel in the China Sea.' Udo led them to the door. 'When it comes to a discreet or delicate commission Axel is the only man. He has worked wonders for me, wonders.'
They descended from the office to the Calle Crespo, the street almost silent now the tin shops were shut, but from the far end came the firecracker retorts from the shooting gallery and the sound of a barrel organ playing 'Deep in the Heart of Texas'. They heaved Udo into Carriscant's victoria and squeezed in beside him. Constancio whacked the pony's rear and they clopped off in the direction of the docks, detouring Escolta's crowds of shoppers on Panteleon's request (in case he was spotted, he said), going instead via the Plaza Calderon and swinging round through dark malodorous lanes between warehouses to emerge at the quayside next to the fire station.
They descended and peered at the mass of shipping moored on the Pasig. Smoke rose from braziers on the sterns of the wallowing cascos and the glare of the electric light from the fire station and the customs house made it difficult to see beyond the water's edge: nothing much more than a confusion of masts and rigging and here and there, further out from the wharves, the solider, darker bulk of the inter-island steamers and coasters.
'What about the way back?' Carriscant asked. 'Will there be room?'
'Don't worry,' Pantaleon said. 'I'll take it straight home. I'll hire a carromato.'
Constancio was despatched in search of one and then the three men picked their way on sagging gangplanks across the banked houseboats towards where Axel's steamer was moored. Families sat around cooking fires preparing dinner, only the children curious about these three Americanos in their white suits tramping through their homes.
'Why doesn't he put in at a jetty?' Carriscant asked.
'Nothing is meant to be easy or straightforward,' Udo explained cryptically. 'Your business with Axel has to be very important for you to make this effort.'
Moored alongside the outlying casco was Nicanor Axel's ugly little steamer the General Blanco. It was a wide,
