Peter Temple - In the Evil Day

She looked at him, she licked her lips, drank a lot of wine.

‘I took the marriage seriously. That was the end of serious relationships for me.’

She drank. ‘It had been going on for a long time before I found out. More than a year. He had all these trips, London, Copenhagen, seminars, that kind of rubbish. I believed him.’

All betrayals were the same, thought Anselm. The only tragedy was that, in the instant in which they became known, the life drained from everything that had gone before-like colour photographs turning into black-and-white.

Alex held out her glass. He half-filled it, added some wine to his.

Her quick drinking made him nervous. He was the quick drinker, that was his escape.

She studied the wine against the light, took a big mouthful. ‘He’d done it before,’ she said, not looking at him, looking around the room.

‘Done what?’

‘Left one woman for another without any warning.’

He knew what she was going to tell him.

‘He left his first wife for me,’ she said. ‘He sent her a telegram.’

Anselm went to the desk and found a cigarette. He could remember his grandfather sitting behind the desk smoking a cigar. The big brass cigar ashtray was still in position, to the right of the blotter in its embossed-leather frame.

He leant against the desk. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘he probably intended to tell her in person, never got around to it.’

‘He was twelve years older,’ she said. She swilled the last of her wine, looking at the scarlet whirlpool, drained it. ‘More, please.’

Anselm poured the Lafite, left an inch in the bottle, there was sediment.

Alex drank. ‘It tastes better and better,’ she said.

‘Twelve years,’ said Anselm. ‘An older man.’

‘When he left me, I worked out that I was the same age his first wife was when he left her. He told me she was frigid, didn’t like being touched, he thought she was a repressed lesbian, she was always kissing and hugging her women friends.’

‘That could be a sign, yes.’

‘No. I saw her with a man at an exhibition. He looked like a biker. She couldn’t stop touching him, she rubbed herself against him like a cat.’

‘What did that tell you? Clinically speaking? With hindsight?’

Alex finished her glass. She held it out and shifted in her chair, crossed her legs, a hint of languor in the movements.

It felt as if the atmospheric pressure had fallen. Anselm poured the Palmer into clean glasses.

‘It told me, clinically speaking, that he’d lied to me from the start,’ she said. She sat back. ‘Talking about it makes me feel better. Have you betrayed many partners?’

‘A few, I suppose.’

‘You don’t remember?’

‘Some I remember. I remember the reverse too.’

‘And how did you respond to that?’

There was something edging on the flirtatious in her voice, the way she was sitting, in the carriage of her head. It wasn’t the manner of a bereaved person.

‘I didn’t bear grudges.’

‘Would you say you were a forgiving person?’

‘No. I think I just didn’t care enough.’

Anselm looked away. He hadn’t intended to say that, he hadn’t wanted to admit his emotional callousness to anyone. He hadn’t admitted it to himself. Much of his adult life had been spent in pursuit of things, including women, but in the moment of possession, they had lost some of their value. And, later, he had not felt any lasting pain at losing them.

‘Are we talking about before or after Beirut?’ she said. ‘Or both?’

‘Before. Things have been quiet in the partner business since.’

She tilted her head and her hair fell onto a shoulder. In the lamplight, her lipstick was almost black. ‘Not enough big-breasted women around? For a tit man like you?’

‘I was lying,’ said Anselm. ‘I’m really a leg man. Legs.’

Alex recrossed her legs, ran a hand over a thigh. ‘I’m not quite sure what that expression means,’ she said. ‘Does it mean legs like dancers’ legs?’

‘Well, for some. We legmen are not all alike.’

‘And you? Personally?’

‘I like runners’ legs.’

She smiled. ‘I’m a runner.’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s warm,’ said Alex. She unbuttoned her waistcoat, leant forward and took it off, threw it onto an empty chair. She turned her head to Anselm. ‘Would you like me to keep going?’

Anselm’s mouth was dry. He sipped wine. ‘Yes,’ he said.

She unbuttoned her shirt. She was wearing a white bra.

…HAMBURG…

‘Lafarge rang,’ said Inskip. ‘They’ve added a name.’

Anselm took the file. He was feeling light-headed.

Jessica Thomas, born 1975, an address in Battersea, London. Inskip had filled in her electronic record.

‘It’s the woman on the motorbike,’ said Inskip. ‘The one who picked up Niemand. We could have been running her long ago.’

‘Orders,’ said Anselm. ‘We await orders.’

‘I thought initiative was what you liked?’

‘After the orders, that’s when I like it.’

‘Tilders left this for you five minutes ago.’

A sealed pouch. A tape.

‘May I know what Tilders does?’

‘Outdoor work. Heavy lifting.’

‘Thank you. Another veil lifted. Whatever he does, it gives him an air of sadness.’

‘He comes across a lot of saddening things. Also he’s tired. That can give you a sad air.’

Anselm went to Carla’s workstation. She swivelled her chair and rested her hands on her thighs. ‘We have had some luck,’ she said.

Behind her two monitors had lines of green code on their black screens.

‘Serrano’s bank. Very careless for people who deal in secrets.

Everything’s outdated. I find on their log that four years ago they transmitted a large amount of data to a bank in Andorra. Gonzalez Gardemann.’

‘Why would they do that?’

‘Back-up, I suppose. I can’t find any links but Gonzalez may be the same operation under another name.’

‘Even so, you’d normally send information like that by hand from one stand-alone system to another.’

Carla shrugged. ‘As I said, careless. Perhaps a salesperson convinced them the encryption was safe. Or someone inside the company wanted to compromise their data. There are other possibilities.’ There would be. Someone from the BND would know that. Deceit without end. Seamless deceit.

‘The point is,’ said Carla, ‘Gonzalez are equally stupid. Instead of moving the data to a stand-alone, they have left it where we can reach it. Their firewall is a joke, their encryption is hopeless. First generation. My Canadian cracked it like a walnut.’

She raised her arms above her head, entwined her fingers, stretched.

Anselm waited for her knuckles to crack. She was looking at him, she had a look about her lips. She knew he was waiting for the sound.

She smiled. Her fingers slid apart, her arms came down.

‘The numbers on the documents you gave me,’ she said.

The pages from the Hauptbahnhof , from Serrano’s case.

‘Yes?’

‘One set worked. It must be the bank’s code for Serrano.’

‘And?’

‘It’s one big file, hundreds of transactions. Some small, some big. I need to put the figures we have through them.’

‘How long?’

‘An hour perhaps. This has taken time. You may wish to tell the client.’

‘Yes. Your work is greatly valued. As always.’

She looked down, the glossy hair fell across her forehead like a dark comb sliding. ‘Thank you. And may I say thank you for the bonus?’

‘No, not me. It’s the client’s reward for your work.’

She turned her head to the monitors and she said, ‘ Nun, wir sollten uns eine Flasche Champagner teilen .’