Rupert Thomson - The Insult

Though pleased with my improvisation, I was aware that what I was saying sounded suspicious, guilty even, and I wasn’t sure how the two policemen took it. Munck, at least, seemed satisfied. He shuffled his papers once more and then stood up.

‘May I ask you something?’ I said.

‘Certainly.’

‘How did you find me?’

‘You were on Miss Salenko’s answering-machine,’ he said. ‘Well, you left the name of the hotel and the number of your room.’

‘You didn’t know it was me, though?’

‘I had no idea.’

‘It must’ve been quite a surprise.’

‘Yes.’ Munck smiled. ‘Yes, it was.’

We passed through the door of the bar and out into the corridor. The two policemen thanked me for my assistance. I wished them luck.

‘If you hear anything,’ I said, ‘will you let me know?’

‘Of course,’ Munck said.

I took the stairs back to my room. I was thinking about Nina’s address book. Without it, Munck’s investigations might be hampered, but I couldn’t bring myself to hand it over. Not yet, anyway. Was I obstructing justice, I wondered, by holding on to it?

When I reached the fifth floor I put my bag of clothes down and leaned on the windowsill. I didn’t know what I felt, exactly. On the one hand, there was relief: nobody was after me. On the other, Munck knew where I lived. And Slatnick.

And then there was Nina, missing …

I was looking out over the side street where she’d parked her car that night. It was dimly lit, deserted — two transit vans, a stack of oil-drums, some wooden pallets. Then I saw him, in silhouette against the sky. He was on his bicycle, as usual, only this time he was riding through the air, and uphill, too, from the curved, wrought-iron roof of the railway station to the clock tower of a nearby church. He was at least twenty metres above the ground, and yet he seemed nonchalant, one hand on the handlebars, the other in his pocket. There had to be a line strung between the two buildings, but I couldn’t make it out. I thought of calling to him, then decided against it. He probably wouldn’t hear me anyway; he’d be concentrating, in a kind of trance. As I resumed my climb I could’ve sworn I heard him whistling. Loots, I thought to myself. The Great Loots. And I too began to whistle.

I hadn’t been back in my room for long when the phone began to ring. I thought about ignoring it. But after it had rung perhaps ten times I reached over and picked up the receiver. It was Victor. He wanted to know what kind of trouble I was in. He promised not to tell Arnold.

‘Sorry to disappoint you, Victor,’ I went on, ‘but it’s not me who’s in trouble, it’s a friend of mine. The police are looking for her. I’m helping them with their enquiries.’

Putting the phone down, I shook my head. Victor.

I turned the TV on: ballet on one channel, ice-skating on another. I turned it off again. I sat by the window on my plastic chair and smoked. Outside, it was snowing. In the distance I could hear the bells of the cathedral, those three descending notes, always descending. A kind of panic spread throughout my body, pushed against the inside of my skin. I remembered the story Nina had told me, the night I took her to the Metropole. I kept thinking of her standing on that road with the Big Wheel behind her, its brightly coloured cars lost in the mist.

At ten o’clock I took the lift down to the lobby and walked out through the revolving doors. The taxi I’d ordered was waiting at the kerb.

‘Mr Blom!’

I got into the car. ‘How are you, Millie?’

‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘You know, I saw you on TV.’

‘Seems like everybody saw it.’

‘I thought you were great. Really great.’

I thanked him.

‘I thought maybe you should make a career out of it,’ he said. ‘You know. Presenter.’

I smiled at the idea.

He pulled out into the traffic. ‘It’s the Elite again, right?’

‘Right.’

‘TV,’ he said, a few minutes later. ‘One day I’ll be on it.’ The way he said it, he made it sound like a desert island.

When we reached the club, I asked him to call back in half an hour, then I set out across the pavement. There were no helicopters flying this time. The weather was too bad.

‘It’s fifteen to get in.’

A different man was on the door. If it had been the same man, he would’ve recognised me. That was something to be grateful for.

‘I want to see Greersen,’ I said. ‘Tell him it’s a friend of Nina’s.’

Five minutes went by. Then another five.

The wind sliced through the telegraph wires above my head. My ears were almost numb.

At last the door opened. A man said, ‘I’ll take you to Greersen.’

Inside, the music was loud and slack, and someone had been smoking grass. It was dark: just a couple of red table-lamps and a strip of ultraviolet where the bar was. A blonde girl in a spangled g-string was dancing up on stage. Her hair swung across one shoulder. A tattoo covered both her breasts. A bird, it looked like. An eagle. Wings beating as she moved. I wondered if she was Candy. But then I remembered Nina telling me that Candy was black. I tapped through the place with my stick. I’d decided to act blind. It might give me an edge. I knocked against somebody’s knee and almost fell. Then I apologised. You have to make it real.

I followed the man through a velvet curtain and down a corridor. We climbed a flight of stairs. The music was muffled now, as though it had been gagged. Greersen’s office was on the first floor, at the back of the building. The room was brightly lit. I could smell dust burning on the naked bulbs.

‘I’m Greersen.’

He had flat black hair and a thin moustache. His voice was thin as well. Two people were in the room with him, but I wasn’t interested in them.

‘My name’s Blom.’

‘So?’

‘Is Nina here? Nina Salenko?’

‘No.’

‘She been here tonight?’

‘She hasn’t been here for weeks.’

There was always a perfect moment for a silence, and this was it. It was a technique I’d picked up from Visser. You could use it like a polygraph, to test the veracity of what had just been said. Greersen’s words hung on in the hot air of the room. He didn’t sound guilty at all, more curious — or mocking.

I broke the silence first. ‘She said you were sleeping with her.’

A woman was sitting on the sofa to my right. I saw the corners of her mouth turn down. Then she lit a cigarette.

‘What’s it to you?’ Greersen said.

‘I’m sleeping with her, too.’

‘Got nice tits, hasn’t she?’

‘The rest of her’s not so great,’ the woman said.

‘Who’s looking at the rest of her?’ a man behind me said.

The woman didn’t say anything. Her paste ear-rings flashed as she reached for the ashtray.

‘She’s gone missing,’ I said.

Greersen put his feet up on the desk. ‘You came all the way down here to tell me that?’

‘I happened to be passing.’

‘What’s wrong with the phone?’

‘I wanted to meet you. Face to face.’

‘It’s not exactly face to face, is it,’ and Greersen laughed, as if he’d just said something clever.

‘It’s good enough for me.’ I took a step towards him, my hand tightening on my cane. There was a sudden movement on my left. Someone’s arm, probably. Someone else’s arm restraining it.

I took my dark glasses off and peered down at Greersen. I was doing it deliberately. I knew that it was hard to take. Those blank eyes peering, close up.

‘I wanted to get a good look at you,’ I said.

There was a smell coming off him. You know that spinach you can buy, pre-washed, in sealed bags? Well, leave it for a week, then open it. That was Greersen. Except he was trying to hide the smell with a cologne. It wasn’t working. The smell squatted underneath the perfume like a toad.