Peter Temple - In the Evil Day

‘It’s about killing people, isn’t it?’ she said, letting go his hand. ‘Being a soldier?’

How many people had he killed? He didn’t want to look at her, looked away, at the valley, the upland, there was cover up there, a fold in the hill, going up, you would go for that, jinking, east to west, back again, use the patches of vegetation.

‘Have you killed people?’

On the opposite slope, a long and bare slope running up to a wainy edge and a dull silver sky, halfway up a tree spat black specks, birds, a scattergun spit of birds, disturbed by something.

‘Have you?’

‘Yes,’ said Niemand.

They walked in silence. Apart. He looked at her quickly, he knew that he had lost her, she was a dream, he had never had her.

‘No pleasure in it,’ he said. ‘I’m not like that.’

She was far, far too good for anyone like him.

They walked for a distance. He could not look at her but he knew how far she was from him. To a tenth of a millimetre. Then she took his sleeve, his hand, she moved against him, rubbed her shoulder against him.

‘No,’ she said, ‘no, I don’t think you’re like that.’

…HAMBURG…

Baader was right, he should do it, quit. He had no right to stay in the job. He had sent Tilders to his death.

No, he hadn’t. It was the work Tilders did that killed him. Baader was also right about that. Clients often left open authorisations, do whatever you have to. O’Malley had talked him into the job at the Hauptbahnhof and he had agreed because they needed the money. If someone had been hurt, killed that day, would he feel as he did now?

Perhaps. Probably.

The job was all he had. If he quit, what would he do? He was gun-shy, there was nothing he could do that he knew anything about.

Think about something else. Think about Special Deployment. Sudden Death. What did these names mean? Deployed to do what?

Kaskis had said: ‘There but for the grace.’

Kaskis had been in Delta Force. He had gone from the Green Berets. Was Special Deployment a unit of Delta Force? Did he mean that he was lucky not to have ended up in Special Deployment?

Kaskis had said something else in Beirut, on the way from the airport. Anselm remembered he had thought it odd, but that was all he remembered.

He stared at a log recording emails sent by a Swiss engineer from his home in Zurich to a company in Palo Alto.

Lourens in a hotel in Zurich with Serrano, snorting coke and meeting Croats. The Hotel Baur au Lac. Lourens burnt beyond recognition. His ex-employee dead in a car with a gun. What did Lourens have to do with all of this?

‘That stuff from last night any use?’ said Inskip from the doorway.

‘The amazing disappearing soldiers and the drug czar?’

‘Good stuff. You’re early.’

‘Can’t stay away. I’m filling in for Kroger.’

‘Any trace on the Lafarge file, bring it straight in. Don’t send without having a word. And anything on Trilling and his Defense Department contracts.’

‘As you wish, o masterful one.’

‘Something else. In an idle minute, see if you can find a Dr Carl Lourens at the Hotel Baur au Lac in Zurich in 1992. Serrano should be there at the same time.’

‘No minute shall be idle.’

The day went by. In mid-afternoon, Carla came in.

‘Tilders,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I know you and Herr Baader were…’ She opened her hand on the stick for a moment.

‘Thank you.’

‘The English accounts of Dr Lourens, they were cleared yesterday. The money went to the Swiss account.’

‘On whose authority?’

She shook her head, the swish of hair. ‘There’s no record, it must have been done on paper, personally.’

Mrs Johanna Lourens, probably. Had O’Malley got a court order on the properties?

It was almost dark when Alex rang. He had been on the point of ringing her several times.

‘Are you going home on foot?’

‘I am. Too little vertical exercise.’

She laughed. ‘Does that mean too much horizontal? Would you like to stand up more?’

He had discovered that she was a laughing person, something her Frau Doktor Koenig persona tried to conceal.

‘I suggest experimenting until a proper balance is found,’ he said. ‘I’m leaving in a few minutes.’

‘Along the lake?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll meet you. Look out for me. Don’t let me pass in the dark.’

‘No. I won’t let you pass in the dark. Not if I can help it.’

…HAMBURG…

It was cold outside but still. Just streaks of day left, lines of light running down the sky like the marks of raindrops down a dusty pane. His breath was mist as he did his rudimentary warm-up, his stretches.

The pain of the start, the complaints of the knees and ankles and hips, of ligaments and tendons and muscles. They did not want to do this any more.

Anselm got into his stride, no one on the path, a good time to be running, the day’s traffic of walkers and runners and tourists and lovers and young mothers with high-speed babycarts and in-line skaters, all gone. Too cold, too dark.

You got used to running with a bag, passing it from hand to hand. It was heavier tonight, the bottle of Glen Morangie he’d bought from the supermarket in Hofweg. He reached the ferry landing, no sign now of what had happened, he shook the thought from his mind. Just run. Try to run at a decent pace. Don’t slop along. Run. You used to be a runner. You could run.

It was dark now. Alex was somewhere ahead, coming towards him. Was she running? I’ll meet you, she said.

A runner coming towards him.

Alex?

No. A thin man. They both grunted, runners’ greeting grunts.

The path turned right, following the lake. There was a moment when he heard the sound of the city, when his brain for some reason registered the noise. A loud hum, a soup of a thousand sounds, like living in the innards of a machine.

Go away, he thought. Would she go away with me? Somewhere quiet. We could read. And make love. Then eat and read.

She would be coming towards him, not far away.

To kill Serrano and Kael, they would trigger a bomb in a ferry. Kill anyone near the pair. Tilders had been close. He had managed to get within two metres, a few seats. Wearing glasses and an invisible hearing aid.

Two figures ahead, coming towards him, walking, heads together.

He felt the familiar alarm, the signs of panic.

There was nowhere to go here, no sideways escape.

He slowed. Heart beating much faster than it should from running. Dry mouth, the tightness of skin.

Relax. The pair from the other night? He picked up his pace. No, it wasn’t, just two people out for a walk. One medium, one small, they parted to let him through. He was close, he started to say Guten Abend.

The bigger one on the left had his right hand in his coat, high up, at his chest.

A few paces away. The smaller man smiled at Anselm, white teeth. Polite.

The bigger one’s hand came out of his coat, something caught the light, a blade, Anselm saw it clearly, the man’s arm was back.

He tried to get out of the way, go to the left, but the blade came across him, it felt as if an ice cube had been passed over his flesh. He looked down. The old tracksuit had opened across his chest, parted.

He had stopped. He had not intended to stop. He stood there, bag in hand.

The knife man had the blade upright. Just a sliver of steel.

A thin expressionless face. Moustache and eyebrows of thatch. The man was in no hurry.

He’s cut me and now he’s going to knife me, Anselm thought. The traditional way of doing things. Not a German tradition but this is the new Europe. He had no feeling of panic or fear. It had happened. He was glad. All the waiting was over.