Peter Temple - In the Evil Day

‘When?’

‘Night of 5 October, 1993.’

‘Thanks, Tony. Really, thanks. Repay you if I can.’

‘Tell the bastards to run some more of my stuff.’

‘I will.’

Caroline looked at the printouts, but she didn’t pick them up for a while. She knew. Anselm, Kaskis and Riccardi had been kidnapped on the night of 5 October, 1993.

…HAMBURG…

She would be full of regret.

Then again, she might not be.

He was going through the day before’s logbooks, rendering them billable, thinking about Alex, thinking about what happened next.

The phone whispered. Beate.

‘Herr Anselm, a Caroline Wishart. Yes?’

He thought to say no, he wanted to say no, but he had given her the number. She would try again.

‘Yes. Thank you.’

Beate said, ‘Mr Anselm will take your call.’

They said hello.

She said, ‘Mr Anselm, I’m really sorry to bother you again.’

He waited, he didn’t mind being rude to her, he didn’t want to talk to her, let her feel that in his silence.

‘It’s about Paul Kaskis.’

He didn’t want to talk about Kaskis or about Beirut, to this woman, to anyone.

‘Ms Wishart, I don’t know what you’re working on, I know nothing about you except that you caught a politician with his pants down. And life and death is just a phrase. So, with regret, no.’

A pause.

‘Mr Anselm, please, please just listen to me,’ she said, rushing. ‘It’s not just a phrase. A man showed me a film of people being murdered. In Africa. By American soldiers. He wanted to sell the film. Then I saw someone try to kill him. I also want to ask you whether you know that Joseph Diab, the man Paul Kaskis was in Beirut to see…’ She ran out of air. ‘Joseph Elias Diab was murdered the same night you were kidnapped. He was executed.’

A film.

Anselm barely heard the rest.

A man called Shawn murdered in Johannesburg. And Lafarge in London looking for a man named Martin Powell, now thought to be Constantine Niemand, who was there when Shawn died and who killed Shawn’s killers.

Kael had talked about a film.

If this prick’s got the papers and the film, whatever the fucking film is…How did Lourens die?

‘What’s the man’s name?’ he said. ‘The man with the film?’

‘Mackie. He called himself Mackie. Bob Mackie.’

Not Powell or Niemand.

‘I’ll call you back in a few minutes, said Anselm. ‘Give me your number again.’

He went through to the workroom. Inskip wasn’t at his station. The man next door, Jarl, the Scandinavian and Baltic specialist, pointed to the passage door and drew on an imaginary cigarette. A longing imitation.

Anselm followed Jarl’s finger, braved Beate’s eyes, and then it took muscle to open the glass door against the wind, then to prevent it slamming. Cold. It would be cold even with a coat. The north wind was running a rabble of clouds across a pale-blue sky. Across the road, the trees were stripped for winter now, shivering.

Inskip had his back to the view, to the lake, to the wind, lighting up. He handed over the cigarette and lit another. They hunched against the wind ‘A holiday,’ said Inskip. ‘I’m thinking, let’s fly away to ten days of sun. Sun and naked skin.’

‘Why waste money,’ said Anselm. ‘You can get the exposure here over two or three years. For naked skin, we have St Pauli.’

Inskip didn’t look at him. He drew on the cigarette held high in his fingers, near the tips.

‘My, you’ve thrown my thoughts into disarray,’ he said. ‘I had in mind a concentrated experience, two or three years of sun in ten days. And I was thinking of my own skin. My own etiolated skin.’

Anselm blew smoke. The wind’s grab reminded him of a holiday in the Hamptons in winter when he was a teenager, smoking in the dunes, the wind-whipped grass, the stinging sand, grit on teeth.

‘Those South African lists?’ he said. ‘Remember your piece of detection?’

‘Indeed. The aborted coup gang.’

‘Write them down?’

‘In the file.’

‘Of course.’

They smoked. Below them, on Schone Aussicht, two police motorcyclists appeared, riding abreast. A police car followed, then three dark-grey Mercedes Benz saloons. A second police car and two more motorcycles completed the convoy.

‘Who’s this?’ said Inskip.

‘Some nonentity. No mine detectors, no helicopters, no foot soldiers.’

Inskip rubbed his beard stubble. ‘Pardon my inquisitive nature but I’ve wondered about something. Does this firm make enough to have premises a few spits from the Senate guesthouse?’

Anselm took a last draw, cartwheeled the butt into the sad garden below. ‘It’s complicated but the short answer is No. I need that file.’

They went inside, crossed the room, raked by the cold fire of Beate’s disapproval. Anselm collected the file and took it to his office. He looked at the lists and then he went back to Inskip’s station and gave him the name.

Ten minutes later, Inskip came in with a piece of paper.

‘A charming woman in the newspaper’s library,’ he said. ‘She looked it up for me. They still have actual paper clippings and file cards with names.’

‘Quaint,’ said Anselm.

He looked at the sheet of paper, then he put it in the file. He rang Caroline Wishart.

‘I can’t help you,’ he said. ‘The name Mackie means nothing. And Diab’s death, that was just a coincidence. People got shot in Beirut all the time then.’

She was silent.

He didn’t wait, said sorry and goodbye.

The file was open on the desk, the names of the brigands assembled to stage a coup in the Seychelles.

Just above POWEL, MARTIN on the first list.

Just above NIEMAND, CONSTANTINE on the amended list.

The name MACKIE, ROBERTANGUS.

Robert Angus Mackie was a mercenary, killed in Sierra Leone in 1996 said the newspaper library in Johannesburg.

The man who showed Caroline Wishart the film, the man Lafarge were hunting, he wasn’t Bob Mackie.

The man was Constantine Niemand.

…LONDON…

Caroline listened to her voicemail. It had gone unattended.

Listen you homophobic bitch, you think you can crucify this man because he…

Next.

Hi, Caroline, my name’s Guy and I think we should meet. I’ve been fucked by names, you would not believe, I’m talking about big names, I’m talking show business, I’m…

Next.

Caroline, I’m Tobin Robinson’s producer. Tobin would very much…

Next.

Listen, sweetie, I really like your face, you have that kind of thin cocksucker…

Next.

We had a little chat, glass of beer, you came to see me. Remember?

It was Jim Hird, the doorman who saw Mackie.

I was talkin to a bloke today, he wrote down the number of that bike, know the one I mean? Some blokes come around askin but he didn’t like the look of ’em, kept mum. I thought you might have a use for it.

He read out the number.

She was out of the door in seconds but she had to wait five minutes for Alan Sindall, the chief crime reporter, to get off the phone before she could ask him.

‘You’ll have to buy me a drink,’ he said. ‘I’ve got something urgent on at the mo. I’ll send it around. Soonest.’

…LONDON…

The man’s name was Kirkby. He raised his wine glass to the light, studying the yellowish liquid like a pathologist with an unusual urine sample. ‘We always try to help,’ he said. ‘Where possible.’

‘It’s finding someone,’ said Palmer.