'He's in love.'
'That's better.'
'Yeah, and his girlfriend's pregnant with twins. Hilde's over the moon. They're coming back soon. Shit, I'm rhyming. I am pissed.'
'That's great news. When did this happen?'
'Hilde told me when I got back from meeting you. Then Peter phoned again.'
'I see. And have you…?'
'Of course I have. Hilde was afraid I was hiding cancer from her or something. She's relieved and she's fine about it. I mean about the boy possibly being mine. She says I should find out for sure.'
Yeah, I thought, and what about your attraction to Catherine Heysen? But I said: 'What effect does all this have on the investigation?'
'I haven't thought it through yet, but I want you to go on. If Heysen was railroaded I was partly responsible and I'd like that cleared up. I owe it to the kid whoever's son he is.'
'And if he's yours you'll want to help him get out of the shitty business he says he's in.'
'That's right, and the same goes if he isn't. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.'
Frank didn't usually speak in cliches and his voice was slurring. He put Hilde on the line and I made all the right noises. Too many times I'd had to tell a person someone they loved was dead. At those moments the misery fills the air like a mist. This was the opposite and, through the wine and the remains of her German accent, I could hear happiness in every word Hilde spoke.
That left me alone in a motel room with two-thirds of a bottle of wine inside me and garlic on my breath. I stripped and had a warm shower followed by a cold one. I cleaned my teeth till my gums ached, made a cup of instant coffee and settled down with Stasiland. I was tempted to ring Lily, but that wasn't the deal.
I presented myself at the Lubitsch clinic dead on time- shaved, shampooed, neatly dressed and with my documents in hand. The giggling receptionist was a youngish blonde with a lively manner. She was good to look at, had a pleasant voice and was adept at putting people at their ease. Handy talent. She gave me a form to fill in and I did it with a mixture of fact and fiction. I gave my profession as security consultant, owned up to a few minor operations, mostly to repair injuries, and ticked the 'facial' box in the question about 'areas of concern'. I wrote truthfully that I was a non-smoker but less truthfully that my drinking was limited to 'occasional social'.
The receptionist looked the form over and gave me one of her toothpaste advertisement smiles. 'Dr Lubitsch will see you in a few minutes, Mr Hardy.'
I nodded and sat in a chair that allowed me to look out a window. She went away with the form and came back quickly to resume her place behind the desk where she must have been doing something though it was hard to tell what it might have been. As I'd suspected, the clinic was on the top level and the view was all I thought it would be. I picked up a couple of the magazines from the rack, but the view was more interesting. I got an eyeful of the river and watched one of the big passenger catamarans churn past. A buzzer sounded and the receptionist stood.
'This way please, Mr Hardy.'
I followed her down a passage. She knocked at a door, pushed it open and ushered me in. The room was large and light, probably one of the largest and lightest in the building. Its occupant was sitting behind a big steel and glass desk, studying my form. He half stood, then sat down heavily in his leather chair and gestured with his head for me to take the other chair.
I'd decided on a direct approach. I ignored his instruction, locked the door behind me and went to his desk.
I flicked the off switch on the intercom and disconnected the phone. He rose and I pushed him down hard. Lubitsch may have been a big man twenty-odd years ago when Roma Brown knew him briefly, but he'd shrunk vertically and expanded horizontally. He was twenty kilos overweight and his belly pushed out his spotless clinician's coat. He wore a crisp white shirt under it with a dark tie and dark trousers. He was bald, apart from grey fluff around the sides, but at least he hadn't committed the Belfrage-style comb-over.
'What the hell d'you think you're doing? You must be mad.' He reached for the switch on the intercom and I rabbit-chopped his wrist.
'Shut up, sit still and listen and you won't get hurt.'
'What do you want? There's no money here.'
'I said listen.'
I told him that I knew he was Karl Lubeck and that he'd worked doing illicit plastic surgery with a Dr Gregory Heysen who'd been jailed for conspiracy to commit murder. Also that he'd taken files from the doctor's office to conceal their activities. And that he'd subsequently profited from the money that had been paid to the murderer of Dr Peter Bellamy before becoming the pimp for a woman named Pixie Padrone.
He was already pasty-faced from spending too much time indoors, but he went still paler. Had a shot at bluffing, though.
'Preposterous,' he said.
I took a camera from my pocket, raised it and took a photo of him there in his chair with the fear in his eyes and his mouth slack.
'What… what's that for?'
I studied the image on the screen and nodded. 'Pretty good. The media'll want a picture when I tell them what I've just told you and provide proof.'
I looked around the room with its black filing cabinets, bar fridge, teak bookshelf, framed degrees, photographs and paintings. 'You can kiss goodbye to all this, unless…'
He sighed but seemed to recover some poise. 'How much?'
It seemed too quick and too easy a surrender, and I remembered Belfrage saying that Lubitsch would take reprisals. It wouldn't do to underestimate him, flabby though he was. He'd come a long way and showed resourcefulness. But maybe his best days were behind him.
'I don't want money, doctor.'
That's when the poise left him completely. He coughed and spluttered and his wan face turned red. He shuddered and fought for breath. His chest heaved and the soft flesh covering it shook like jelly. I know I can look threatening but this was something else. He was having a panic attack. I grabbed him, pulled his tie loose and popped the top button on his shirt getting the collar open. I pushed his head down between his knees.
'Stay there and breathe.'
I opened the bar fridge, got a bottle of mineral water, filled a glass and brought it to him. He was getting some air in painfully. I lifted his chin and gave him the glass. 'Sip it.'
He clutched the glass in shaking hands and did as he was told. The flush slowly faded from his fat face and his hands steadied. 'Who sent you?' he whispered.
'We can talk about that,' I said. 'When's your next appointment?'
He looked at his gold watch. 'In forty minutes.'
'That's long enough. Tell me if I'm right. You're still doing things you shouldn't and they don't always go right.'
He nodded and took a couple of gulps of the water.
'Okay, now that's the sort of thing I want to talk to you about. If you come up with the right answers I just might be able to put your mind at rest. No questions, just answers. Why did you take Michael Padrone's file along with the others?'
'Pixie… Patricia asked me to.'
'Why?'
'She said there were things in it that would make it worse for him.'
'How could things be worse? He'd confessed.'
'She said he'd done other things he'd told the doctor about and that if it came out he'd have a hellish time in prison for what little time he had left. Why are we talking about this?'
'I said no questions. What happened to the file?'
'She destroyed it and I destroyed the others.'
'Did Heysen have the same sort of problem you're facing-dissatisfied clients? Could one of them have framed Heysen? Hired Padrone to kill Bellamy and lie about who hired him?'
