Peter Temple - In the Evil Day

‘He’s dead.’

‘Oh. Shit. The name, I think I remember it, he was kidnapped with you…’

‘He was murdered in the Lebanon.’

Another sigh. ‘Well, thank you. I think I’m at the end of this road.

As a matter of interest, what was he doing in the Lebanon?’

‘He wanted to talk to an American soldier, an ex-soldier. A Lebanese-American.’

‘You wouldn’t remember his name?’

‘Diab. Joseph Diab.’

He hadn’t told Alex that. Why was he telling this woman?

‘Did you know what it was about?’

‘No. Paul never told you anything.’ Anselm’s eyes fell on the photograph albums on the bookshelf beside the door, three big leather-bound albums, he remembered looking at them when he was a child, Pauline pointing out people.

‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’d really appreciate being able to ring you if I get any further with this. Is that possible?’

Anselm hesitated. Then he gave her the W amp;K number. ‘Leave a message if I’m not there.’

He took the photograph albums from the study to the kitchen. He poured wine and opened an album. The pictures were in chronological order, little notes in ink under most of them identifying people by names and nicknames, giving places, dates, occasions. There was a photograph of Pauline and a young man sitting on the terrace. Fraulein Einspenner was standing behind them, the maid. She was young and beautiful. In the first album, the captions were in red ink. In the other two, they were in green, in Pauline’s hand.

There were pictures missing, taken out of their corners. The captions were crossed out and cross-hatched in green ink until they were illegible.

The phone rang again.

‘I feel I need company,’ Alex said. ‘I’ve had some news, I’m feeling a little…’

‘Come over,’ he said. ‘Can you do that?’

…VIRGINIA…

They walked in the day’s cold ending and stopped beside a pond, silver, sat on a wooden bench bleached white as bone by sun and rain and snow.

‘Got a smoke? I’m not allowed to.’

Palmer reached into his coat. ‘Allowed? Fuck, who’s running things here?’

They lit cigarettes, sat back. Smoke hung around them in the still air, reached the earth, curled. High on the wooded hill behind the pond a cluster of maples blazed amid the brown oaks, seemed to be sucking in the light.

‘Pretty spot,’ said the shorter man. ‘The prick’s hard to kill, is he?’

‘He’s quick.’

‘And they’re dead.’

‘Yup. Messy. I sent Charlie Price to sort it out. They told him they’d use pros next time.’

Three ducks came around a small point in the pond, ducks keeping close together, missed the mass exodus to warmer places, just the three of them left.

‘He’s been in the trade,’ said Palmer. ‘Now he’s riding shotgun. He drove this Shawn’s wife home, the arrangement was that he stayed for the husband to get back. I think he just lucked onto this.’

‘Shawn had the film?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘What about him?’

‘Well. A known quantity. Courier mainly. They say Ollie North used him.’

‘You wouldn’t want that to be the high point of your career.’

Palmer shot his cigarette butt towards the water. It fell well short, lay on damp leaf mould. ‘I gather he took Ollie. Like everyone else.’

Silence. The other man shot his butt. It almost made the water, died in a puddle.

‘So who would be using him?’

‘We’re checking.’

‘I was given to understand this history was history.’

Palmer put both hands to his head and scratched all over-back, top, sides. ‘Burghman was in charge, we can’t ask him. The film- well, that’s something else. No one knew about a film then.’

‘Not a huge cast of suspects.’

‘No. Trilling says Burghman told him, he thinks it was in ’93.

Burghman said there’d been a problem but it was fixed and the slate was as clean as it needed to be.’

A deer had appeared from the thicket on the far shore of the lake. It looked around, advanced with delicate steps to the water’s edge, lowered its head and drank.

‘Never saw the point of killing animals like that.’

‘No,’ said Palmer.

‘I might have another smoke.’

A breeze had come up, worrying the trees, worrying the water. Palmer lit a cigarette, handed it over, lit another.

‘As it needed to be. That’s not the same as clean.’

‘No.’

‘This guy’s tried the media. Could try again.’

‘We’ll hear, we’ll have some notice,’ said Palmer.

‘It’s late to be caught in the rain, Scottie.’

They heard the sound of a jet on high, the booming hollow sound, filling the world, pressing on trees and water, on the throat. The deer started, was gone.

‘Won’t happen,’ said Palmer. ‘But we may have to go on with the Brits. I wanted to ask you.’

‘Don’t let Charlie near them. Subtle’s a Mossberg up the arse.’

‘I’ll go myself.’

‘Good. Time. Going back tonight.’

Out of the wind, on the path, deep in shadow, their heads down, feet disturbing the leaves. The other man looked at Palmer and Palmer looked at him, and they both looked away.

The man said, ‘Well, judgment. Live or die by your judgment.

Comes down to that.’

Palmer nodded.

‘But you know that, Scottie.’

‘I do. Sir.’

They walked, smoking, smoke hanging behind them like ragged chiffon scarves, the dark rising beneath them.

…WALES…

When they were on the motorway, he told her to drop him somewhere, anywhere, a petrol station, but she said no, they were going somewhere safe, he could decide what to do then.

Niemand didn’t argue. He tried to stay awake but the car was warm and quiet, the smell of leather, soft classical music on the player, and his head lolled and he fell asleep. He woke several times, registered nothing, and then they were entering a village on a narrow road with houses on both sides.

‘Almost there,’ said Jess.

He was asleep again before they were out of the village. He woke with the car going uphill on a stony dirt road, tight bends, their headlights reflecting off pools in the wheel ruts and turning stone walls silver.

They stopped.

An entrance, an old wooden gate.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘This is it.’

She was looking at him.

‘Where?’ he said.

‘Wales.’

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Gate.’

He got out, shaky legs, no feeling in his feet. Wet air. Cold, a wind whipping. Dead black beyond the beam of the lights and the only sound the expensive hum of the Audi.

He expected resistance but the gate swung easily, old but maintained, no squeaks, grease in the hinges.

She drove through. Niemand closed the gate. He walked to the car, hurting in many places, the balls of his feet. He didn’t mind. He was glad to be alive. There was a Greek saying for what he felt, for gratitude for life outweighing pain and suffering. He reached for it, the tone of it was in his head, the way it was said, but the words didn’t come.

He got in. They went up a narrow, steep driveway, turned left. The headlights caught one end of a low building, a long cottage, small windows, and they went past it and lit up another building, a stone barn, a big building with brace-and-bar doors and a dormer window.

Jess stopped and got out, the engine running, the lights on. She stretched, arms to the sky, fingers outstretched, then she bent to touch her toes. She was smaller than he remembered her to be.

‘Let’s put it inside,’ she said. ‘I feel like I’m looking after someone’s baby.’