Philip Kerr - The Lady from Zagreb

“Thanks for the tip, Inspector. I’ll try to remember that.”

“Please do. My superiors require me to meet with you at this hotel once a day to make sure that you are in compliance with the terms of your visa. Should you fail to attend this meeting, you will be subject to immediate arrest and deportation back to Germany. Is this clear to you, Captain Gunther?”

“Does that mean we’re having breakfast again tomorrow?”

“I’m afraid so. Shall we say eight o’clock?”

“I think nine would suit me better. I thought I might find a nice bar and have a late night.”

“We might as well say eight. We’re not much given to late nights in Zurich. And in the police, we like to get an early start.”

“I guess that means Germany should look to invade after lights-out.”

Weisendanger sighed. “Please try to remember what I said about a sense of humor, Captain. It doesn’t translate from the German into Alemannic.”

We finished a breakfast of boiled eggs, coffee, and toast, after which I gratefully bade him goodbye, collected my car from the hotel garage, and then drove along the north shore of Lake Zurich, toward the municipality of Küsnacht and Dalia Dresner’s Swiss home. I was very much looking forward to seeing Dalia again, especially as her husband, Dr. Obrenovic, was away in Geneva.

Fifteen minutes later I’d twice missed the quiet entrance to the house on Seestrasse, the number on the stone gatepost was so well hidden. It was only when I steered the Mercedes along a gravel drive that ran through a valley of high box hedge and around to the front of the house, where a long neat lawn gave onto the sparkling blue sapphire that was Lake Zurich, that I properly understood how Küsnacht hid itself from view like a reclusive oyster. Showing a keen appreciation of human psychology, the psychiatrist Carl Jung lived and worked in Küsnacht. Doubtless he understood well that the municipality’s pampered inhabitants have the same neuroses and phobias as everyone else, with a lot more money to indulge them. But the only way to truly understand Küsnacht itself was to see it from the lakeside. This revealed it to be a little like Wannsee, only with much larger houses and bigger waterfronts. Even the boathouses looked like elegant mansions. Some of the boathouses had smaller houses attached where probably their boatmen lived. Most of the homes in Wannsee don’t hide their size. The houses on Seestrasse hid everything except the numbers on the gatepost and the newspaper in the letter box. The little town’s coat of arms was a gold cushion on a red velvet background, and after seeing the home of Dr. Obrenovic, it was hard to see how this could have been anything else save perhaps a fat bag of gold coins. Like most Germans, I’m fond of home, but Dalia’s husband’s idea of home and mine had no more in common than Lake Zurich and a bucket of water.

I rang the doorbell and waited for someone to pay attention to it; as loud as a church bell, it was hard to imagine it being ignored by anyone. I was surprised to find it answered by Dr. Obrenovic, who introduced himself to me with the alacrity of an older man in possession of a much younger wife, as if meeting all of Dalia’s friends and acquaintances was necessary to his peace of mind; or not. Great wealth won’t shield a man from being the victim of jealousy, only from the pain of hearing his wife’s behavior discussed by a wide circle of friends. Men like Dr. Obrenovic don’t have a wide circle of friends, just an inner circle of trusted employees. Almost as soon as I felt him lay his keen blue eyes on me I knew that he knew — or at least suspected — that something had happened between Dalia and me, something outside the normal conventions of the professional, detective-client relationship. It was a curious sensation for me, like seeing my father again on the day I had almost failed my Abitur. But this certainly didn’t make me feel guilty, or even awkward, just unreasonably young — which is to say, more than a decade younger than a man who was probably in his mid-sixties — and perhaps curious as to the reason why a woman as beautiful as Dalia had married a creaking gate like him. It couldn’t have been money; as a young UFA starlet, Dalia was making a lot; then again, for some women, a lot is never quite enough. There’s a French novel about that, I think.

I went inside and took off my hat and followed him through a hallway that was as wide as the Polish Corridor and lined with more old masters than Hermann Göring’s cellar.

“My wife is just changing,” he said, leading me into the drawing room. “She’ll be down in a moment.”

“I see.”

“So you’re the detective who’s been looking for her father,” he said in a way that made me think he was almost amused by the very idea.

“That’s right. I just got back from Croatia.”

“How was it?”

“I’m still having nightmares about the place. I keep dreaming I’m back there.”

“That bad, eh?”

“Worse than bad. Awful. Like something from a horror film.”

“Did she tell you that I’m a Serb? That I’m from Sarajevo?”

“She might have mentioned it,” I said, uncertain if it had been Dalia or Goebbels who’d told me where Obrenovic came from. “I really don’t remember.”

“Of course, I haven’t lived there in a long time. Not since the king was assassinated.”

He didn’t mention which one, and I certainly didn’t ask. As far as I could see, Yugoslavian kings were a bit like taxis; it couldn’t be long before another one came to the head of the rank.

“If there’s one thing European history proves it’s that there’s nothing more disposable than a king,” I said.

“You think so?”

“They don’t seem to be in short supply.”

As tall as Leipzig’s Volki monument, Obrenovic had a full head of white hair, a pair of invisibly framed glasses, a bass tenor’s voice, and ears as large as bicycle wheels. He walked like an old man, as if his hips were stiff — the way I walked myself first thing in the morning, before the day had lent them some greater flexibility.

“You obviously don’t know who I am.”

“Your name is Obrenovic. Apart from the fact that you’re a doctor of something and married to Fräulein Dresner, I have no idea who you are.”

“Is that so?”

A little overawed by the size and luxury of the room, I nodded dumbly. It’s always a surprise when I encounter people like Obrenovic, who seem to own so much: good furniture, fine paintings, familiar bronzes, inlaid boxes, sparkling decanters, ornaments, chandeliers, rugs and carpets, a dog or two, and, outside the French windows, a Rolls-Royce. Not having anything very much myself is as near to feeling like a rich man as I’m ever likely to get, even if it is the kind of rich man in the gospels who actually took the advice of Jesus and sold all of his possessions to give the money to the poor. Perfection like mine never felt so shabby and, for a change, it made me more insolent. But this might just as easily have been caused by the disappointment of knowing I wasn’t about to make love to Dalia — at least not for the present.

“So, Captain Gunther,” he said, pouring himself a cup of coffee from a silver pot on a little tray. “Did you find him? That’s what we’re dying to find out.”

I waited for a moment, until I was quite sure that none of the coffee was coming my way, and said, “Did I find who?”

He frowned and put the coffee cup to his lips. Even from where I was standing it smelled better than the coffee in the hotel. Just as important, it looked hot, which is the way I like it.

“Dalia’s papa, of course. Father Ladislaus. Did you find him in Banja Luka?”

“Not in Banja Luka, no.”