Don’t Cry For Me Aberystwyth

Chapter 11

THE OLD MAN Elijah was waiting in the office. He was sitting peacefully in the client’s chair with the serene air of a Buddhist monk or a man for whom waiting calmly is a skill honed during a lifetime’s practice. The Cambrian News was on the desk in front of him, folded to display the story covering Emily’s murder.

I took off my coat and slung it on the hatstand. I glanced at the newspaper and said, ‘You predicted it and you were right. Now what do you want? We’re fresh out of medals.’

‘You know what I want. You found it in that alley.’

‘Finders keepers.’

He smiled thinly. ‘Yes, but isn’t there also something in that ditty about weepers?’

‘Suppose you tell me who killed her?’

He took a slow deliberate breath. ‘You killed her.’

‘I’d never even met her.’

‘You need to be introduced first to kill a person?’

‘Spare me the wisdom.’

‘I see her name on your incident board, and yet you say you do not know her?’

‘I said I’d never met her, and it’s true. I could put up the name of the mayor of Gotham City, it wouldn’t mean we were acquainted.’

‘Then maybe he, too, would die.’

I sat in my chair and laced my fingers behind my head. ‘Talk plainly or get out.’

‘It is my belief that a parasite has taken up residence in your neighbourhood.’

‘You mean like rats in the attic?’

‘I do not refer to that, although I don’t deny the possibility that you have them, too.’

‘A parasite?’

‘It is known as a Pieman.’

‘A what?’

‘You have a Pieman.’

‘I have a Pieman?’

‘I am sorry.’

‘This comes as quite a shock.’

‘It normally does. Naturally, you will say you do not know what a Pieman is.’

‘Why bother to such a sharp guy like you? Feigning ignorance of a Pieman is a difficult stratagem to master.’

‘That’s for sure.’

‘We have a guy across the road who eats a lot of pies,’ said Calamity.

‘Ah yes, you joke. Of course you have a guy across the road who eats pies. He is the Pieman. Or one of them.’

‘You mean he’s killing these people?’

‘Not personally. He supplies the names of the victims, and those he gets from you, from your incident board. If I am not mistaken you will find the Pieman resides across the road in one of the top-floor flats—don’t look!’ His face flushed with fury. ‘Don’t look, you fools!’

Calamity and I both arrested the movements of our heads with a strange air of guilt.

‘Louie watched him being winched in,’ said Calamity, making a great pretence of not looking out of the window.

‘If you were to visit him you would find a lot of pies and a thirty-five-millimetre camera with a long-focus lens trained on this room. On his wall will be a replica of your incident board. The moment you put a lead on your board he takes a snap, develops it in a tray next to the camera, and twenty minutes later pins up the gleaming wet black-and-white photo. From this he harvests the names, which are smuggled out to the assassin in the empty pie boxes.’

‘That’s absurd.’

Elijah smiled. ‘On the contrary, it is a most wonderful development. For the first time in perhaps twenty years Hoffmann has made a mistake. He has exposed himself. I cannot tell you how excited this makes me.’

‘You mean Hoffmann is behind the Pieman?’

‘Who else? Who else would go to such lengths to protect himself? And yet, paradoxically, in choosing to protect himself in this manner he may have fatally compromised himself. It is a wonderful development.’

‘But why would anyone do such a crazy thing?’ said Calamity.

‘It is a venerable and ancient assassination technique, developed many years ago by Welsh Intelligence. The beauty of it – and this is partly why the Welsh thought it up, because their espionage budget has always been severely limited – the beauty of it is its cost-effectiveness. The Pieman, you see, is a crude although effective form of custodian, a keeper of secrets, a protector or gate-keeper, if you will. He is enlisted to eliminate people who pose a threat to whatever needs to be protected. And the great thing is, he is very cheap because he rides piggyback on someone else’s investigation – in this case, yours. You do the legwork while he sits on his arse all day and eats pies. Hence the Pieman. Ingenious, don’t you think?’

‘Yeah, we’re overwhelmed by his cleverness,’ I said.

‘That’s if we believe you,’ added Calamity.

‘Trust me, I have better things to do with my time than make up stories like this.’

‘So you say.’

‘I guess we’ll just have to go round and speak to the Pieman,’ I said.

‘That is what you must on no account do. Categorically not.’

‘Why?’ I sneered. ‘Because we’d find nothing there except a guy who likes to eat pies, and no camera?’

‘You really are very stupid, aren’t you?’

‘So you keep telling me. I’m getting quite tired of it, to tell the truth.’

‘Just suppose for the sake of argument that I am not lying. What will happen if you go up there? You will find the Pieman and he will close down his operation. And what will you have gained? You will have killed the parasite. But what of Hoffmann? What of him? He will be long gone, and perhaps it will be another twenty years before he is heard from again. Perhaps it will never happen again. This one occasion is all we are given, this one chance, this unique moment in the annals of espionage. And you threaten it with your intemperate curiosity.’

‘All right, I’ve supposed that. Now you suppose this. Just suppose for the sake of argument there is no such thing as the Pieman. We walk around all day taking ridiculous care not to look up at the window across the street and not putting things on the incident board, and all for what?’

‘Exactly! All for what? What possible reason could I have for inventing such a story? It would make you look stupid, for sure. It would make your lives more difficult to a very slight degree; but neither of those two goals is of the slightest interest to me. Why would I care?’ He paused, then added thoughtfully: ‘Tell me, did a tradesman come round a few days ago selling AGC?’

‘What’s AGC?’ I said.

‘Anti-glare coating for your incident board.’

‘Yes,’ I said just as Calamity stammered ‘No.’

She and I exchanged glances. Elijah smiled and looked at the incident board. It was as if the gods had been waiting for this moment: the clouds parted and a blade of fierce sunlight stabbed the gloom in the office and bathed the incident board in bright golden light. And yet, glare-free, not a single detail was obscured. Whatever the salesman’s motives, you couldn’t help but admire the quality of his AGC.

‘It is a common m.o. for a Pieman to employ,’ said Elijah with studied nonchalance.

‘So what do we do, then?’ I asked, hating myself for being sucked into his absurd charade, but unable to resist. What if he was telling the truth? What if there really was a Hoffmann and, by compromising the Pieman, I blew the only chance to catch him that had presented itself in twenty years?

‘What you do,’ continued Elijah, ‘is absolutely nothing. You carry on as normal – sticking your leads up on the board and doing nothing to indicate that the Pieman’s cover has been blown.’

‘But what if more people die?’

‘Certainly more people will die. Do you think this is a game? More people will die, many of them innocent. But their deaths are of no consequence when set against the greater prize, Hoffmann.’

‘We can’t do nothing.’

‘What are you talking about? Can’t do nothing? Of course you can. Doing nothing is one activity that falls within the power of just about anybody. Even a nincompoop like you can do nothing. If I asked you to undertake some strenuous or difficult mission you might be justified in complaining, but here I am asking you to do nothing and you act as if it were an endeavour entirely beyond the wit of mortal man. You can certainly do nothing, and that is precisely what you must do. In the meantime I will speak to my organisation and seek instruction. A Pieman is a difficult infestation to deal with. It demands patience, and guile, and, above all, subtlety.’

‘Can’t we just follow the boy who delivers the pies?’ asked Calamity.

‘You think he won’t be waiting for that? You think the Pieman is a fool?’

‘Aren’t you worried?’ asked Calamity.

‘About what?’

‘If a name goes up on the incident board, the person gets whacked, right?’

‘That in broad outline is the essence of a Pieman manoeuvre, yes.’

‘What if we put your name on the incident board?’

He paused. A look of mild panic discomposed his features and his skin drained of colour. He swallowed. ‘Little girl, I must ask you not to joke about such a thing. That would be tantamount to murder. You would be assassinating me.’

‘Doesn’t sound like such a bad idea,’ I said. ‘Tell me who Hoffmann is, and maybe we won’t do it.’

‘You joke.’

‘No. It seems an excellent idea.’

Elijah opened the desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of Captain Morgan.

‘Help yourself,’ I said.

He unscrewed the cap, took a drink straight from the bottle and said, ‘Hoffmann is a man who once stole a coat.’

The old man stared at the bottle, swirled the rum arond, deep in thought. We waited. Nothing happened. A lorry passed by in the road outside, making the windows rattle.

‘Is that it?’ I asked.

‘Was it a nice coat?’ said Calamity.

‘In terms of tailoring I think it was undistinguished. At least, as far as I recall, neither the cut nor the quality of the cloth has ever been a feature of this case.’

We nodded. Calamity wrote down in her notebook, ‘Not the quality.’

We waited for a minute or so but there was no more.

I said, ‘Your name is Elijah, right?’

‘Yes, you may call me that.’

I pulled out an index card and began to write. ‘That’s good. I’d hate to kill the wrong man.’

‘W-what are you doing?’

‘What does it look like? I’m putting your name on the board. See? Elijah, brackets, infuriating jerk. That’s you, Pumpernickel, you in the silly hat.’

He slammed his hand down on top of mine. ‘No, please. Please, you mustn’t.’

‘Start talking, then. A bit faster this time. And forget the Talmudic mystery tour.’

He took a gulp of rum and began again.

‘The coat belonged to a man called Caleb Penpegws. It was stolen from him as he lay on a stretcher in the infirmary recovering from his wounds after the Mission House siege in Patagonia. You are familiar with that terrible conflict?’

‘Yes, we’ve heard about it.’

‘But of course the coat did not originally belong to the young soldier. He bought it from a woman, a Mata Hari, so they say, who stole it from the reading room of the Buenos Aires public library.’

Calamity jotted that down.

I asked, ‘Is Caleb Penpegws the one who was tortured and used to cry out “Hoffman!” in his nightmares?’

‘His nightmares are not a feature of the case but it is quite possible. As a wearer of the coat he would certainly have been tortured.’

‘Who by?’

‘Members of a secret organisation known as ODESSA, which you may have heard of. Created during the final days of the Second World War, its aim was to help high-ranking members of the SS escape from Europe. The usual route was through Switzerland, to Italy, from there by boat to North Africa, and from there to Lisbon before embarking for South America. To many countries, but predominantly to Argentina – it was run at the time by the Perón government, which had some sympathy for the Nazi fugitives.’

‘And why were they interested in Caleb Penpegws’s coat?’

‘Because, of course, it was not his coat. He bought it from the Mata Hari and she had stolen it from the reading room of the library. It originally belonged to a man called Ricardo Klement who owned a dry-cleaning business in the city.’

‘Why did ODESSA want his coat?’

‘Because Ricardo Klement was not his real name. His real name was Adolf Eichmann, one of the most high-ranking Nazis to evade allied capture in 1945. You may know what happened to him. He was kidnapped in 1961 by the Israeli Secret Service, outside his house in Garibaldi Street in the San Fernando district of Buenos Aires. From there he was taken to Jerusalem and tried and eventually executed for crimes against the Jewish people. All this is a matter of historical record.

‘During interrogation Eichmann told his captors about an item in his possession, one of truly epoch-making significance; so much so that it has since been eagerly sought by just about every intelligence agency in the world – by Mossad, and ODESSA, and the CIA, and M15 and Welsh Intelligence, and countless others. I am not at liberty to disclose the precise nature of this item, except to say it was in the pocket of the coat the day it was stolen from the reading room of the Buenos Aires public library; stolen by the Mata Hari, if she existed.’ He paused as if reflecting, then said, more to himself than to us, ‘Because I have my doubts; the long toll of the years has eroded my certainty in certain aspects of Eichamnn’s testimony. He claims she seduced him, that it was a honey-trap, and that she took him to an apartment opposite the railway station where she prepared a dish of lamb and cheese for him. Can such a thing be possible? Lamb and cheese?’

It sounded like the traditional Welsh dish known as cawl; the recipe for which could be obtained from tea-towels sold at the tourist information shop. I didn’t tell him; I decided to hold that card close to my chest. It might be useful if Odessa ever showed up.

‘Where do you fit into all this?’ I asked.

‘I am here because of a promise I made to my dear mama on her deathbed: to find the two lovely sons she lost to Hoffmann. Two brothers, the like of whom the world will never see again. Little Ham, the youngest; we lost him to Hoffmann many years ago, somewhere – who knows where? – along the labyrinthine spoor left by this phantom. And Absalom, the man they found slain in the alley wearing the bright red robes of Christmas . . . For years he had been searching for Ham, and now alas he also has met his doom.’

‘But what’s all this got to do with Butch Cassidy?’ said Calamity and then slapped her hand to her mouth in horror. It was an unusual slip for her and I put it down to the excessive excitement generated by her Pinkerton mania. I felt sorry for her.

‘Shit,’ she said.

Elijah allowed a sly smile to animate his features. He paused for a beat or two, allowing the import of her words to be felt, and then said, ‘Oh dear, oh dear!’

Calamity looked at me, squirming.

I forced a laugh. ‘Forget it, kid. It was nothing.’

‘We all make mistakes,’ said Elijah in a voice that made me want to punch him. ‘But we can easily overlook it. All you have to do is give me the item you found in the alley. The one which rightfully belongs to my people, and which, I suspect, makes some reference to the celebrated outlaw Butch Cassidy.’

I picked up the index card. ‘No, I think instead we’ll just put your name on the board. That’s a much better idea.’

‘Then I am truly sorry.’ He stood up with exaggerated weariness, walked over and stood behind Calamity. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. Then took out a gun and held it to her temple. She froze. We all did.

‘There’s no need for that,’ I said in a cloyingly reasonable voice. ‘No need at all. We can work this out.’

‘Really? There’s been so much time to work things out but here we are with everything still unworked-out.’

‘Don’t give it to him,’ said Calamity.

‘Don’t be daft,’ I said. ‘Of course I’ll give it to him.’

I raised my hands and moved towards him. ‘Don’t do anything sudden, Elijah. I have to get past you to get the item you’re looking for.’

He caught my glance and I saw a sudden fear flash through the pools of his eyes. At least, I thought I did.

‘You’re scared of me? You think I will hurt your little girl? You don’t understand . . .’ He looked bewildered and puzzled. ‘My people have suffered so much. You could not begin to imagine it—No, don’t move!’

I was almost on him. Just another step and I would be there.

‘And yet you look at me with that fire of condemnation in your eyes, as if . . . as if . . . Don’t you see? It is we who were slaughtered. We’re not the wolves, we are just the lambs . . . Oh God. Oh God! Have we become no better than our oppressors?’ It was as if he was talking to an angel standing behind me in the room. Doubt clouded his gaze. He let the hand holding the gun fall to his side and began to sob. I made a grab for the gun; it slipped out of his hand and fell to the floor with a clatter. Maybe I should have noticed how ridiculously easy it was. Maybe I should have reflected on the fact that Mossad are not renowned for employing cry-babies. But I didn’t. I dropped to the floor and picked up the gun. Calamity jumped clear and I shoved Elijah, who was old and frail, and crying, and not very hard to shove, up against the wall and pressed the gun barrel into his eye. The lid closed round it, the faint grey lashes fluttering like butterflies. I gave the barrel a slight twist and he groaned.

There was a pause, the moment when I was supposed to tell him what a dirty low-down dog he was, that I would shoot without giving it a second’s thought. But that would have been a lie and we all knew it. Instead I was overcome by disgust. Nothing I could say would sound convincing; it would just sound like something on the TV. The moment had passed. I felt like Hamlet. I pulled the gun out of his eye and removed the magazine. I emptied out the cartridges and let them clink and dance on the table before gathering them up and putting them in my pocket. I slotted the magazine back in with a snap and returned the weapon. He took it without a sound and walked out, still sobbing. I felt sorry for him, sick in the pit of my stomach. But that was because I didn’t know his bitter tears were just a lousy act and what I should have done was reload the magazine, stick the barrel back in his eye and pull the trigger.